Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

MESSAGES FROM THE QUEEN

INCOME TAX

The VICE-CHAMBERLAIN OF THE HOUSEHOLD reported Her Majesty's Answers to the Addresses, as follows:
I have received your Address praying that, on the ratification by the Government of the Kingdom of Norway of the convention set out in the Schedule to the Order entitled the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Norway) Order 1969, a Draft of which was laid before your House, an Order may be made in the form of that Draft.
I will comply with your request.
I have received your Address praying that, on the ratification by Japan of the Convention set out in the Schedule to the Order entitled the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Japan) Order 1969, a Draft of which was laid before your House, an Order be made in the form of that Draft.
I will comply with your request.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

BRITISH TRANSPORT DOCKS BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

ABERDEEN CORPORATION (FISH MARKET) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

EDINBURGH TRADES MAIDEN FUND ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Potatoes

Mr. Brewis: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what consideration he gave to the expected level of potato imports before fixing the acreage quota at 85 per cent. for homegrown early potatoes.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Cledwyn Hughes): The quota, which applies to all potatoes, was fixed by the Potato Marketing Board in accordance with its powers under the Potato Marketing Scheme, after consultation with the Agricultural Departments and the Farmers Unions. My Department's concern in this matter was to secure an acreage consistent with our policy of self-sufficiency in maincrop potatoes.

Mr. Brewis: Is the Minister not concerned that the value of imports of new and processed potatoes in the last two years have been so much higher than the previous four years? Should he not urgently seek ways of giving home growers a bigger share of the market—indeed, all of the market in July—when we can grow all the potatoes that we need?

Mr. Hughes: The object is to secure self-sufficiency, a laudable target. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would wish to exaggerate the situation. Cyprus, which is a Commonwealth country, is likely to send about 100,000 tons this year compared with 136,000 tons in 1968. This arrangement results from negotiations between British and Cyprus growers. The situation is satisfactory.

Agricultural Training Board

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further representations he has received from farming interests about the operation of the National Agricultural Training Board; what reply he has sent; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and


Food what further representations he has received regarding the future operation of the Agricultural Training Board.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity is responsible for matters relating to the Agricultural Training Board, and representations addressed to us would normally be transferred to her Department for reply.

Mr. Smith: Does the Parliamentary Secretary not think that he ought to be interested in this matter? Does he not understand that there is deep hostility towards the Training Board? Are not the Government aware that, without the real co-operation of the farming community, the Training Board can never succeed? Will he do something to get the Government either to amend or abandon this?

Mr. Mackie: Naturally my right hon. Friend and myself take a great interest in the subject. The hon. Member's Question asked about representations and our replies, and I have dealt with that.

Mr. Buchanan-Smith: Will the hon. Gentleman scotch once and for all the rumours that the fertiliser subsidy may be reduced to pay for the Agricultural Training Board? Does he not realise that if this happens it would not be in the best interests of agricultural efficiency?

Mr. Mackie: This suggestion was put forward during discussions, because of the antipathy of farmers to a direct levy. The Government Departments concerned are definitely in favour of the direct levy system, and I can safely say that the fertiliser idea has been scotched.

Horticultural Production

Mr. Hastings: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what increase in home production he expects the horticultural industry to achieve by 1972.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. James Hoy): The efficiency of the horticultural industry is mounting rapidly and I expect it to play its full part in the agricultural expansion programme

that my right hon. Friend announced on 12th November last. Precise estimates for horticultural crops are not practicable because of the uncertainties of weather, consumer demand and technical innovation.

Mr. Hastings: Does the Parliamentary Secretary realise that that is a very optimistic statement? Have not the difficulties and costs of the horticultural sector increased steadily since this Government came into power? What provision has his right hon. Friend made in the present Finance Bill to alleviate this position? Will he give a specific answer?

Mr. Hoy: I do not think that there is any room for pessimism. Horticulture is capable of substantial contributions to the economy. If we look for signs of progress, work aided by grants carried out in England and Wales, under the horticultural improvements scheme, since 1966 is estimated to have cost over £28 million—more than three quarters of this in the glasshouse section of the industry.

Sir G. Nabarro: I am not interested in investment. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I am the Parliamentary representative of the Vale of Evesham, and that all the growers in the Vale of Evesham are fed up to the back teeth with this Government, because their markets for British produce are systematically destroyed by foreign produce dumped at the height of the season? What is he doing about it?

Mr. Hoy: I am sorry to hear that the hon. Gentleman is not interested in investment. If he is not, the industry is. Its share has been growing considerably, and we want to see it expanding. That is why the £28 million has been spent.

Brussels Sprouts

Mr. Hastings: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what increase there has been in the transport costs for one bag of brussels sprouts on a 50-mile haul during the last 12 months.

Mr. Hoy: My information is that over the period and the distance specified, transport costs from the main growing areas have risen by about one penny per 281b. net or bag of brussels sprouts.

Mr. Hastings: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his information does not accord


with that which the hauliers, in my area at least, have given? Does he realise that they are prepared to guarantee that costs have risen for a bag of brussels sprouts from 8d. a year ago to as much as 1s. 0d. now? Is this not evidence of what we were discussing in the previous Question?

Mr. Hoy: I do not think so. If the figures were correct it would be, but they certainly do not equate with the figures given to me.

Food (Import Substitution)

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the continuing high level of food imports in spite of the imports substitution policy, and the trade deficit of £52 million in February, what further measures of imports substitution by home produced food he now proposes.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Our agricultural programme is based on the expansion of home production, which is technically feasible with an economic use of resources. Our objective is to secure increased import saving of £160 million a year by 1972–73. Progress will be examined at successive Annual Reviews.

Sir G. Nabarro: I know all about that. Would the right hon. Gentleman apply himself to this simple and straightforward proposition? If his import substitution policy for food is the hilarious success that he claims for it, why is it that our balance of payments progressively declines month by month?

Mr. Hughes: No one has referred to a hilarious success. The only thing that is hilarious is the hon. Gentleman. We are succeeding in getting continuous progress. Over the last few years the increased demand for temperate foodstuffs has increasingly been met from home production. I am satisfied that the selective expansion programme will continue to do good work.

Mr. Godber: In view of yesterday's unhappy trade figures, is the Minister not extremely disappointed with his inability at the Price Review to implement his policies of last November? Would he now take some special fresh initiative to help farmers to get ahead with expansion? In particular, will he apply his

attention to the problem of capital and the very high cost of getting credit?

Mr. Hughes: I appreciate the import-saving rôle that agriculture can fulfil. Our policies are directed to this end, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. We have concentrated on the main commodities for import saving—beef, cereals and pig meat. I believe that we can get the results. The right hon. Gentleman and the House will appreciate that in agriculture we cannot expect results overnight.

Sir W. Bromley-Davenport: Oh.

Mr. Hughes: We must wait for a period of time. For example, the beef cycle is a three-year cycle, and everyone except the hon. and gallant Member for Knutsford (Sir W. Bromley-Davenport) knows this.

Food Prices

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has made of increased retail food prices to the consumer, consequent upon the increase of £340 million in taxation in the full year in the Budget and whether he will seek to re-imburse farmers for these losses.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: While no precise estimate can be made of the total effect of the Budget changes on food prices, it is estimated that the extension of purchase tax to additional food items will increase retail food prices, as measured by the food index, by between 0·3 per cent. and 0·4 per cent.
As regards the second part of the Question, the effects of taxation apply generally.

Sir G. Nabarro: Like all the other Answers given today, that is half-baked. There is nothing in my Question that alludes to purchase tax. Will the right hon. Gentleman now apply himself to all the taxation increases in the Budget—selective employment tax, purchase tax, corporation tax, petrol duty and the rest—and say what effect they are likely to have? Is it not a fact that retail food prices will rise by about 1s. 4d. in the £ during this year, due solely to these budgetary increases in taxation?

Mr. Hughes: As always, the hon. Gentleman's calculations are different from everyone else's.

Sir G. Nabarro: They are right.

Mr. Hughes: The hon. Member should know that the Budget will have little direct effect on farmers—

Sir G. Nabarro: Really.

Mr. Hughes: —and that the increased costs arising from the Budget will be taken into account at the Annual Price Review.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Can my right hon. Friend say what the effect would be of imposing levies on imported food, as proposed by the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber), and of introducing an added-value tax applying to food?

Mr. Hughes: The hon. Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro), in asking this Question and in putting his supplementary to the previous Question, conveniently overlooked the fact that his party's policies would result in much higher food prices.

Mr. Biffen: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many proposed increases in food prices have been notified to him under the early warning voluntary arrangements since the recent Budget and what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government towards these price increases in the light of the balance of payments strategy propounded in that Budget.

Mr. Hoy: Ten notifications have been received from food manufacturing firms, many of them covering more than one item. It continues to be our policy that such proposals should be examined against the criteria set out in the current White Paper on Productivity, Prices and Incomes Policy (Cmnd. 3590).

Mr. Biffen: As the hon. Gentleman's colleagues are having such difficulty in persuading the International Monetary Fund that the Budget is really having the effect upon domestic consumption that the Chancellor alleged that it would have, would it not be much more satisfactory if the Minister totally abandoned this attempt at veiled price control?

Mr. Hoy: I would not care to comment on the first part of the supplementary question. If the hon. Gentleman really wants an answer to that, he should address it to the Minister concerned. I

have answered the Question which is on the Order Paper.

Sugar Imports

Sir C. Osborne: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for how many years Great Britain is pledged to buy sugar from Jamaica at £52 a ton, in view of the fact that Canada pays only £21 14s. a ton for the same quality sugar; why the United Kingdom has agreed to pay Australia £48 10s. a ton; what quantities per annum Great Britain has contracted to buy; and if he will terminate these agreements.

Mr. Hoy: We have an obligation to purchase just over 1·7 million tons of sugar a year from Commonwealth suppliers under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement at prices which are negotiated every three years as being reasonably remunerative to efficient producers and which are at present some £5 per ton below those quoted by the hon. Gentleman.
The Agreement is of indefinite duration, subject to our right to introduce changes after 1974 by giving certain periods of notice. I am informed that Canadian sugar refiners obtain about 90 per cent. of their imports from Commonwealth and other preferential suppliers, and pay them a margin on top of the world price, which is at present about £34 per ton.

Sir C. Osborne: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that my figures came from the Economist, a normally reliable publication? In any event, even if we grant the hon. Gentleman the £5 per ton he mentioned, why should we be paying Commonwealth producers twice as much as we pay the Canadians when the Canadians have a standard of living twice as high as ours? Why should the same apply to the Australians, who also have an infinitely higher standard of living?

Mr. Hoy: I am surprised to hear the hon. Gentleman's remarks because only last November he put his name to a Motion urging the Government to restore the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement to its former eight-year term.

Mr. Turton: Is it not true that during the time of sugar shortage in 1962–63 British consumers were getting their sugar at half the world price owing to the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement?

Mr. Hoy: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, and that is the purpose of the Agreement. It is designed to maintain level prices that are fair to both the consumer and the producer. I thought that that met with the support of practically the whole House.

Mr. W. Baxter: While the Government rightly provide concessions to poorer Commonwealth countries, why is it necessary to pay £48 10s. per ton for Australian sugar?

Mr. Hoy: Australia is part of the Commonwealth, and under the Agreement Australia gets rather less than some other Commonwealth territories.

Mr. Godber: While my hon. Friends are glad to hear the hon. Gentleman defending the Agreement so valiantly, will not he draw the appropriate conclusion from all this and agree that here is a real example of a levy system working extremely well?

Mr. Hoy: I was merely asked about the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. I cannot remember ever opposing it. I am delighted to show my support for it, and I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's support.

Artificial Milk

Mr. Peter Mills: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in view of the increase in artificial and filled milk, what steps his Department is taking to protect consumers from misleading descriptions when they purchase these synthetic products in restaurants, snack bars and retail shops.

Mr. Hoy: None, Sir. The consumer is already protected by the Foods and Drugs Act, 1955, which makes it an offence to sell either of these products under the designation "milk".

Mr. Mills: As the hon. Gentleman is also responsible for food, is he satisfied that the consumer is not being tricked into thinking that he is getting wholesome liquid milk when all the time he is getting nothing more than an ersatz substance? Is it not time for the consumer to be protected from this sheer trickery?

Mr. Hoy: There is a considerable amount of protection already in existence. For example, it is absolutely false and

illegal to use the word "milk" if it is not milk that is being supplied.

Mr. Mills: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the increased amounts of artificial milk used in restaurants, snack bars and domestic kitchens, what steps he is taking to protect the pool price paid to the British dairy farmer.

Mr. Hoy: All the factors affecting returns to milk producers are considered at the Annual Review. Producers are protected by the guaranteed price for the standard quantity, which at present includes more than 80 per cent. of milk sold off farms.

Mr. Mills: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that this trend of using ersatz milk is having a serious effect on the prices paid to the dairy farmers and that this and increased costs, coupled with the Government's failure to control imports, are making the dairy farmers' condition very serious?

Mr. Hoy: In such a situation we would try to give protection, but the cumulative effect over many years has not been more than a ½d. a gallon.

Dr. John Dunwoody: When my hon. Friend is considering milk prices, will he bear in mind the importance of this industry to some regions, and particularly to some development areas?

Mr. Hoy: This is one of the things we have always to keep in mind. Within our agricultural policy we have a great responsibility to the dairy industry, but we also have to remember that there is a consumer interest as well.

Agricultural Buildings (Rating)

Mr. Stodart: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on what basis the increased costs of production falling upon those farmers whose buildings have been assessed for rates were taken into account in the recent Price Review.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Cost increases attributable to rates, which were of the order of £84,000, were taken into account on the same basis as other cost increases at the Annual Review.

Mr. Stodart: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that this system must mean that a farmer who has been rated suffers higher costs than another farmer who has not been so rated? Is he really anxious to restore the situation to conform with the intention of the Act, and, if so, is it not possible to place a temporary embargo on the activities of his assessors, at least until this matter has been straightened out?

Mr. Hughes: As the hon. Gentleman appreciates, this is a difficult and complex problem. At present it is being urgently considered by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government together with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and myself. I would only add that the increase in rates is a very small part of the total figure for increases. It is less than 0·2 per cent., but I recognise the importance of the problem.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is an increasing problem for farmers in England and Wales? When he has completed his discussions with his Government colleagues, will he publish a White Paper containing his conclusions and a statement of what can be done to make this system fair throughout the country?

Mr. Hughes: I appreciate the point the hon. Gentleman has in mind, but, as I said, this is primarily the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government, to whom I shall convey the hon. Gentleman's suggestion.

Dairy Industry

Mr. Monro: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what increase he now estimates will take place in the dairy herd this year, following the Government's announcement in November on the expansion of the industry.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: The March, 1969, census results for England and Wales showed an increase of 101,000 dairy cows compared with March, 1968. The numbers of heifers in calf are higher than a year ago, and the indications are that the expansion will continue.

Mr. Monro: If the number of dairy cows is increasing but if, at the same

time, the consumption of liquid milk is falling, what does the right hon. Gentleman intend to do with the surplus of milk unless he introduces severe import control of dairy produce?

Mr. Hughes: As the House knows, milk production this spring has been affected by poor weather conditions. It has not been rising at the expected rate. To the extent that any reduction in the pool price results from an increase in the dairy herd for beef purposes, this will be taken into account at the 1970 Annual Price Review. Hon. Members will be interested to hear that the Milk Marketing Board for Scotland expects the average pool price to increase by ¼d. per gallon.

Mr. Stodart: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree with the advice given by his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, that it is no use giving incentives to farmers to produce more milk unless one can drink the liquid milk that is produced? Does he agree with that philosophy, particularly bearing in mind the import-saving potential, notably in butter and cheese, of this industry?

Mr. Hughes: The important thing is to see that the amount of milk produced meets a given demand at a particular time. That is why farmers should be assisted in the regulation of the market, not only in the production of milk for liquid consumption but in the production of milk products as well.

Mr. Brewis: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what further proposals he has for increasing the British dairy industry's share of the home market.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: The measures taken by the Government at successive Reviews have resulted in an expansion in the dairy herd and home production that in addition to supplying all our liquid milk requirements, enables us to meet a substantial part of the increasing demand for milk products.
At the same time, we have taken measures to increase and improve stability in the home market.

Mr. Brewis: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that Answer. Does he


agree that the British industry has a very disappointing percentage of its own market in dairy produce? Has he any further proposals for reducing the amount of cheese and skim milk powder coming into this country?

Mr. Hughes: I agree that there are problems in relation to the milk products market. However, when one considers the situation in this country and the situation across the world in relation to milk products, one realises that we are doing rather well.
To answer the hon. Gentleman's question about further measures, he will know that we have achieved a voluntary restraint agreement covering cheese with our major suppliers and that we have cut back imports of butter. We are regulating the British market reasonably well, but I agree that the situation needs to be watched constantly.

Mr. Godber: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that there is a great deal of disappointment among farmers generally at his not having been able to complete his negotiations in relation to cheese? He mentioned our major suppliers. Does not he acknowledge that some of our minor suppliers in Europe have increased their supplies to this country considerably and that he has not so far announced any effective restrictions on those increases? Will he make a statement about that?

Mr. Hughes: The right hon. Gentleman is exaggerating when he says that large-scale supplies are coming from our minor suppliers. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] That is not the position. It was important for us first to get agreement with our major suppliers. We are now in the process of negotiating with the minor suppliers; and we hope to conclude these negotiations soon.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Is it not a fact that there is even greater disappointment among Common Market countries about the levy system as it applies to butter?

Mr. Hughes: I indicated, without specifying any other country, that there is considerable concern in the developed countries across the world over the milk products situation.

Hill Sheep Flock

Mr. Monro: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what increase he estimates will take place in the hill sheep flock this year, following the Government's announcement in November on the expansion of the industry.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Over the past few seasons there have been steady increases in the hill flock in response to subsidy and price incentives. The 1969 Review decision supplementing the 1968 determination should reinforce this trend.
This spring has been a bad one for ewe losses in many hill areas; and it would not be wise to make predictions about flock numbers over the coming year.

Mr. Monro: Does the hon. Gentleman now realise that a 5 per cent. reduction in the amount of mutton imported would permit an increase of 1 million ewes in this country, and would not that be the right way both to solve this problem and to cut imports?

Mr. Hughes: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have an agreement with New Zealand. However, I am anxious to see a reasonable expansion of the hill flock. I think that the increase in the guaranteed price which was made this year of 1½d. per lb., in addition to last year's increase of 2½d. per lb., is the right sort of incentive to achieve the result we want.

Mr. Hazell: Would my right hon. Friend agree that it will be inadvisable to reduce imports of mutton until we can be satisfied that there is a sufficient increase in our sheep flocks?

Mr. Hughes: I agree with my hon. Friend that a balance must be held and that we must make certain that there is an adequacy of meat of good quality at reasonable prices for the British consumer.

Agricultural Land (Development)

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has of the amount of agricultural land which will be surrendered for industrial or housing development in the current year; and if he


will give the acreage of agricultural land which was taken in this way in the years 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968.

Sir D. Renton: asked the Minister of Agriclture, Fisheries and Food how much agricultural land has gone out of production during each of the past three years owing to development; and how much is estimated will be taken this year and next year.

Mr. John Mackie: The loss of agricultural land to urban and industrial development in England and Wales was approximately 42,000 acres in 1964–65, 42,500 acres in 1965–66, 50,000 acres in 1966–67 and 35,000 acres in 1967–68. I cannot make any precise estimate for this year and next, but I would not expect it to go very wide of these ranges.

Mr. Smith: Whatever the demands of housing and industry, are not we, as a comparatively small island, engaged on a rake's progress in the amount of agricultural land that we are allowing to be swallowed up? Is it not time the Government did something positive to protect agricultural land?

Mr. Mackie: I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but he must appreciate that we have a population of about 55 million, which is rising. If he has any suggestions for housing them and for providing them with roads, schools, playing fields and so on, except by some use of agricultural land, I will welcome his proposals.

Agricultural Industry (Budget)

Mr. Speed: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what estimate he has now made of the effects of the Budget on the agricultural industry.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I estimate that the Budget measures are likely to add about £1,000,000 to the direct costs of agriculture in a full year.

Mr. Speed: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that Answer, may I ask him if he really believes that the Budget, taken with the recent Price Review and the present level of interest rates, will help British agriculture in its import-saving rôle?

Mr. Hughes: I calculate that the Budget will not have any effect on the

import-saving targets that we have set for agriculture. The hon. Gentleman specifically referred to interest rates. He will be aware that interest on loans for business purposes is still chargeable against income tax.

Sir W. Bromley-Davenport: Is it fair that a good farmer who is overdrawn at the bank can no longer obtain tax relief on loans made on his overdraft while a bad farmer who has allowed his buildings to fall down is allowed to get tax relief for capital improvements?

Mr. Hughes: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will let me have the details of any specific cases of which he knows—

Sir W. Bromley-Davenport: Read the Finance Bill.

Mr. Hughes: —I will certainly look into them. In my view, the number of bad farmers in Britain is a very small percentage of the total. The good farmers are making good progress and, as I said, they will still get tax relief on the interest on loans for business purposes.

Northumberland Committee's Report

Mr. Jopling: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he will implement the recommendations of the Northumberland Committee's Report.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: I would refer the hon. Member to the statement I made on 1st May announcing the Government's decisions on the Report.

Mr. Jopling: Does the Minister recall that on that occasion he said that only boneless meat would be imported, and that the bones themselves were a dangerous carrier of this virus? Is he aware that bones can still be imported from these countries where foot-and-mouth disease is indigenous? Does he realise that they can be used for industrial purposes, one of which is the manufacture of fertilisers, which would seem to be very dangerous? Will he investigate this situation?

Mr. Hughes: I shall be glad to investigate that point.

Mr. Wellbeloved: Will my right hon. Friend continue to bear in mind that the


only way in which the British housewife can obtain good quality meat at a reasonable price is by his early announcement that he has adopted the recommendation of the Northumberland Committee of an early reduction of the 20 per cent. ad valorem duty, which would need to be practically abolished if he is to achieve that aim of good quality meat at low prices?

Mr. Hughes: As I said in my statement on the findings of the Northumberland Committee, we shall be discussing the various rates with our traditional suppliers within and without the Commonwealth. I can say no more than that at present.

Stupefying Baits

Mr. Farr: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when he expects to publish his conclusions on the current series of narcotic bait layings in England and Wales.

Mr. John Mackie: The operations involving the use of stupefying baits for the control of wood pigeons will not be completed until after the end of August. When the operations have been completed, we shall need some months to assess the results.

Mr. Farr: As the last series of tests worked out at a cost to the taxpayer of £1 per pigeon killed, does not the hon. Gentleman think that it might be better to return to traditional methods, such as shooting, for the destruction of these birds, and bring to an end this indiscriminate spreading of poison round the countryside?

Mr. Mackie: The experiment—and it was an experiment—was closely controlled by our officers. When all the costs were totalled and divided by the number of pigeons killed, that would be the cost but, as I say, it was an experiment and was not done on a commercial basis. The new experiment is being done on a much wider scale, and the cost per bird should be much less. We, and the N.F.U. have been in touch with the shooting organisations with a view to promoting the use of the more traditional methods to see whether they will be more successful.

Brucellosis

Mr. Kitson: asked the Minister Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what are the figures of herds and cattle now free of brucellosis; whether he is satisfied with the progress being made in eradicating the disease; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Up to the end of April, 4,027 herds, comprising some 420,000 animals, had been registered as accredited under the Brucellosis (Accredited Herds) Scheme.
The progress which I reported in my reply of 19th December, 1968 to my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Dr. John Dunwoody) is being well maintained.—[Vol. 775, c. 463.]

Mr. Kitson: Is the Minister aware that the progress of eradication is slowing down, and that many vets believe that unless there are some incentives the scheme will come to a standstill? Now that the pedigree herds are in and a lot of the retail producers are in, there is not the incentive for others to join. Will the right hon. Gentleman look again to see how encouragement can be given to the farming industry so that eradication can go forward a little faster?

Mr. Hughes: I am very anxious that this scheme should go forward as quickly as possible. I would not agree that there is any danger of the scheme slowing down or that progress is slow. The hon. Gentleman will know that this is a very difficult disease, requiring a complex series of tests and considerable veterinary and administrative supervision. I am as anxious as the hon. Gentleman to see progress made, but he and the House must realise that before we can come to the stage of complete eradication we must build up a reservoir of brucella-free animals for replacement. This is the only way in which it can be done.

Mr. Godber: I acknowledge that some progress has been made, but is the Minister aware that there is great concern among farmers in general that we are lagging behind other countries? Will he seriously look at the possibilities of extending the scheme by area eradication—I agree that we cannot go the whole


hog at the moment—and possibly linking it with compensation? Would not that help things along?

Mr. Hughes: I have looked at the possibility of area eradication, and have had applications from certain areas for consideration of an experiment or pilot scheme of this kind, but the advice I have received from my experts is that this is not practicable at this stage, that the progress we are making now is satisfactory and that, for the reasons I have given, the way we are going about it is satisfactory.

European Agriculture

Sir B. Rhys Williams: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if he will hold consultations with European Economic Community and European Free Trade Association countries with a view to defining the contribution Great Britain can make to solving the problems of agricultural surpluses and deficits in those countries;
(2) what studies he has made to establish the pattern of long-term development of the agricultural industries of Western European countries, including Great Britain; and what place the agricultural industry of Great Britain will take in such development.

Mr. Hoy: The United Kingdom already plays a full part in the international organisations which are concerned with developments in agriculture and with the agricultural policies of European countries, and these matters are best pursued in such bodies.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the publication of the Mansholt Report has given rise to intense concern in the agricultural community, particularly in Germany and France, and that this is taking the form of opposition to any idea of extension of the Community? Will the Minister see what can be done to counter that feeling on the Continent, so as to smooth our way, if we intend to join the Community?

Mr. Hoy: The report has obviously been brought to our attention, but as we are major food importers we cannot be

accused of causing the surpluses. On balance of payments grounds alone, we could not go on importing food to this extent just to help those countries to dispose of their high surpluses. We have to plan our agriculture to meet our own requirements and I hope that in the course of conferences which it has been my privilege to attend on many occasions we can persuade those countries to adopt similar policies to those that are already in force here.

Mr. Hazell: Before issuing any comforting words on their agricultural policy to European countries, will my hon. Friend bear in mind their impact on our own agricultural industry?

Mr. Hoy: I had hoped that I was doing that when answering the last supplementary question.

Rooks

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what steps he proposes taking to preserve the rook from extinction in view of the important contribution it makes to controlling pestiferous grubs.

Mr. John Mackie: None, Sir. There is no evidence that the rook is in any danger of extinction. It is widely distributed in large numbers, and breeds in all counties of Britain.

Mr. Rankin: Is my hon. Friend aware that during the past year I have seen two rookeries in Warwickshire completely destroyed because, as I believe, many farmers blame the rook for the sins of the crow—[Interruption.] Of course they do: they do not know the difference. Will he look again at this problem?

Mr. Mackie: I presume that my hon. Friend knows the old country saying that if one sees one rook it is a crow, and that if one sees a lot of crows they are rooks. But I do not think that we need worry unduly. I do not suggest that my hon. Friend's story about the rookeries in Warwickshire is not correct, but experience shows that rooks do other damage and eat other things than crop pests. There may be a particular reason for destruction of these two rookeries, but if my hon. Friend has any particulars to give me I shall be delighted to look into the matter.

Selective Agricultural Expansion Programme

Mr. Speed: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish a White Paper giving the progress to date of the 1965 selective agricultural expansion programme.

Mr. John Mackie: The 1965 selective expansion programme has been rolled forward to 1972–73. Progress was outlined in the 1969 Annual Review White Paper (Cmnd. 3965).

Mr. Speed: That does not answer the Question. Does the Parliamentary Secretary agree that there has been a total increase in production since the 1965 forecast of only 3 per cent. over the last four years, compared with a forecast of 3 per cent. each year? In view of this tremendous shortfall, is the hon. Gentleman satisfied with the present situation? If not, what does he intend to do about it?

Mr. Mackie: The major shortfall was in 1968–69, a year in which there was a very bad harvest in every respect. It is ridiculous to look at agricultural production on the basis of only one year. As I was in the middle of pointing out to the right hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Godber) two days ago when you, Mr. Speaker, stopped me, but the right hon. Gentleman knew full well what I was wanting so say, we tend to bandy figures about too much. We must consider the general picture, which is one of increased production over the years.

Mr. Godber: If the Joint Parliamentary Secretary wishes to look at the general picture, perhaps he will look at the White Paper once more and see that there is only one year in that period in which we have met the target in regard to the selective expansion programme. Does the hon. Gentleman realise that the trend is wholly unsatisfactory? Will he urge upon his right hon. Friend the need for real incentives to get the expansion programme going?

Mr. Mackie: The right hon. Gentleman should look at the increase in the beef herd of 22 per cent. The dairy herd and the pig herd are increasing. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to bandy about figures, he should look at his own

party's record from 1953 to 1958, when the index of net output started at 103 and finished at 102.

Farm Income and Agricultural Output

Mr. Ridley: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what has been the percentage growth of farm income in real terms, and of net agricultural output between October, 1964, and the latest convenient date, respectively.

Mr. Hoy: For 1968–69, when output was seriously affected by bad weather, farmers' aggregate net income, adjusted to real terms by the Consumer Price Index is forecast at about 13 per cent. less than for 1964–65, and the volume of net output, using 1954–57 prices as a base, about 1 per cent. more.

Mr. Ridley: How can the Government justify paying farmers 13 per cent. less for producing 1 per cent. more? Is this in accordance with the prices and incomes policy? What do the Government intend to do about it?

Mr. Hoy: The hon. Gentleman, like any other hon. Gentleman, can be very selective in the years he uses. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I am not objecting to it. My only comment is that the hon. Gentleman compared a year in which the weather was very good—1964–65—with last year in which, as everybody admitted, the weather was very bad.

Beef Production

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will further review the profitability of beef rearing and fattening in the United Kingdom with a view to promoting increased production from farms, in view of the expected shortfall in foreign supplies.

Mr. Hoy: The profitability of beef rearing and fattening was fully taken into account during the recent Annual Review, when substantial encouragement was given to cattle production. It is too soon to judge what effect recent Government decisions will have on beef imports, but there is no reason to expect any significant shortfall in total supplies.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Is there not bound to be a cut-back in the supplies coming into this country? Do not all reports


from the beef-rearing areas show that the measures taken in the Price Review just will not produce the increased production and the expansion that the hon. Gentleman wants, because the measures simply were not good enough and there is not sufficient profitability to provide the capital required for this expansion?

Mr. Hoy: I said that the falls would not be significant. The effect of the Price Review has been the opposite of what the hon. Gentleman has just said.

Mr. Farr: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the cost of producing fat cattle has never been higher than it is at present? What is he doing about it? What attention is he paying in particular to the problems that those who fatten on grass have to contend with?

Mr. Hoy: The lesson to be drawn from that is that the industry is so confident that it is paying higher prices than it has done previously.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will take steps to facilitate an increase in the supply of beef-type calves for fattening coming from the dairy herd in Great Britain.

Mr. Hoy: We already do a great deal, by advice and financial incentives, to encourage dairy farmers to breed calves suitable for beef. I am sure they will have taken note of the increase in the guaranteed price for fat cattle at this year's Annual Review and are planning to meet the resulting demand for good rearing calves.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: Have not the figures for beef-type bulls at artificial insemination centres declined? Is not the reason for this that beef fattening farmers simply will not be able to make a sufficient profit from fattening, so the demand is slackening off?

Mr. Hoy: I cannot at this time give the answer to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. If he is sufficiently interested, I shall be only too happy to give him the reply.

Mr. Hazell: Has not the increased price for fattening cattle caused the price of calves to rise, thus directly benefiting the farmers?

Mr. Hoy: That is what I hoped I had conveyed in my answer to a previous supplementary question.

Meat Carcases Imports (Brazil)

Sir R. Russell: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will ensure that meat carcases imported into the United Kingdom from the Brazilian State of Rio Grande do Sul are only from animals which have been humanely pre-stunned before being slaughtered.

Mr. John Mackie: No, Sir. Although we support the international work O.E.C.D. is doing to promote humane slaughter, we would not feel justified in attempting to impose our own standards on other countries unilaterally.

Sir R. Russell: Why not? Why must we import presumably very small quantities of beef from Brazil if the animals have not been pre-stunned before slaughter?

Mr. Mackie: We allow in this country for religious reasons types of slaughter other than pre-stunned humane slaughter. We could not unilaterally impose standards irrespective of the percentage of meat which comes from Brazil.

Agricultural Support

Mr. Biffen: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will commission and publish a Departmental study on the cost/benefit effectiveness of the present system of Exchequer financed agricultural support assuming alternatively a fixed and floating exchange rate.

Mr. John Mackie: No, Sir.

Mr. Biffen: Does not the Parliamentary Secretary appreciate that considerable sums of public money are voted for Exchequer agricultural price support and it would be highly desirable if a cost/benefit exercise were carried out to determine if these are providing value for money, both for the taxpayer and for the agriculturist? If his Department will not conduct this exercise, is not this exactly the type of subject which is suitable for a Select Committee on Agriculture?

Mr. Mackie: I should hate to cross swords with the hon. Gentleman on questions of exchange rates and a floating £,


because my knowledge of these questions is not very great. But any study of the type the hon. Gentleman suggests would depend greatly on the limits within which the exchange value of the £ was assumed to float. If it could float considerably either way, the study would not be very worth-while.

Livestock (Codes of Welfare)

Mr. Rankin: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, in view of the fact that the codes of welfare recommendations for livestock which he plans to prepare under Section 3 of the Agriculture Act, 1968, are not compulsory, if he will use instead his powers under Section 2 of the Act to make provisions by regulation.

Mr. John Mackie: My right hon. Friend has already announced some proposals for regulations. The Farm Animal Welfare Advisory Committee will advise us on any other matters where regulations appear justified.

Mr. Rankin: Will not my hon. Friend take note of the views of many of us in the House who are deeply interested in the subject of animal welfare? Does he realise that we do not regard the powers which are already given as being of sufficient consequence? Will he look at the matter more closely?

Mr. Mackie: We recognise that there is a wide variety of opinion, not only in the House but elsewhere, on this very complex subject of animal welfare under modern methods. We have a very high-powered advisory committee to help us. I assure my hon. Friend that everything is being done to balance all the views. One important point to bear in mind is that farming profits could be affected to a considerable extent if some of the recommendations were implemented to the full.

Mr. Turton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable disappointment in the country that the Department's approach is so hesitant as he showed in his reply and that it is not aiming for the quick implementation of the Brambell Report?

Mr. Mackie: In the right hon. Member's word, this is a very hesitant subject. Since the Brambell Committee was appointed, we have gone a long way to produce

these codes of practice and several Regulations which the Minister has already accepted. This is a very complex subject and not easy to deal with.

Mr. Rankin: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS CATERING

Mr. Kitson: asked the Lord President of the Council if he will make a statement on the increases in the price of wine served by the Refreshment Department.

Mr. Paget: asked the Lord President of the Council whether he will withdraw instructions to increase the list price of wines that have paid duty at the pre-Budget rate by twice the Budget increase.

Mr. Ensor: In answering these Questions, and knowing the generosity of the House, I crave its indulgence, because I am in some trouble.
The Refreshment Department no longer owns stocks of wines but has them on consignment from an authorised supplier. The supplier increased his prices with effect from Monday, 21st April, and the Catering Sub-Committee, at its meeting on 22nd April, approved the increase in charges made to Members. The increase was greater than the increase in tax because any price increases have to reflect not only the tax but gross profit margin, as is customary in the catering trade.
May I add that I am now in the process of trying to investigate the whole situation.

Mr. Kitson: While appreciating the difficult task which the hon. Gentleman has taken on, and wishing him well in his new appointment, may I ask whether he is aware that it is ridiculous to increase the price by 2s. 7½d. the day after the tax has gone up by only 1s. 1d., and that the House should set an example to the rest of the country? Is he aware that the whole House would support him if he found a way of reducing the price?

Mr. Ensor: I have a good deal of sympathy with the hon. Member. The Sub-Committee made inquiries about what has


happened in other catering establishments, and it discovered that the increases in this House are in line with those charged elsewhere and were introduced at approximately the same time. As I have already said, I am trying to investigate the matter; I have nothing further to say.

Dr. Gray: Would my hon. Friend explain why the price of a glass of wine in the Members' Dining Room has been increased to 4s.? His explanation may apply to bottles, but, at the moment, at the Old Vic, in the Upper Circle Bar, one can get a glass of wine for 2s. 9d., and at the Royal Court Theatre 3s. Would he explain why this exorbitant price—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Answers and questions, even on this subject, must be reasonably brief.

Mr. Ensor: I will investigate it.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSE OF COMMONS TELEVISION (WESTMINSTER HALL)

Mr. William Hamilton: asked the Lord President of the Council if he will take steps to consider the feasibility of the use of Westminster Hall as an auditorium in which visitors might watch proceedings of the House of Commons on closed circuit television.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): Any such consideration would have to await a decision of the House to televise our proceedings.

Mr. Hamilton: Why so? Is my right hon. Friend seized of the absurdity of a situation in which hundreds of people, especially in the summer, queue outside, hoping to see the House in action, while there is an enormous hall standing empty which could be used for the purposes suggested in the Question—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—and that that hall belongs to the people and not to the Members of this House?

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend will appreciate that many of our friends from outside who come here do not come to watch television proceedings.

Mr. Heffer: Would my right hon. Friend have a further look at this? I

understand completely the views expressed by hon. Gentlemen opposite. My hon. Friend must know that they would object strongly to this because such nonsense as we had last night over surtax would be seen by more people than it is at present.

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend must appreciate the decision of the House. I am afraid that there it is.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, if he agreed to this request, many more of the electors would see how the Government run their affairs, and that this would bring them down more quickly than ever?

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman must speak for himself.

Mrs. Ewing: Is this not the age of the desire for participation? Would this not be a modest and distinguishable increase in participation which would not cut across the principle of televising the House outside its own precincts? What does the right hon. Gentleman have to fear from this monster anyway?

Mr. Peart: The hon. Lady should not confuse participation with watching. The two are quite different.

Oral Answers to Questions — SELECT COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE (REPORT)

Mr. Tudor Watkins: asked the Lord President of the Council when he expects to issue a White Paper containing his observations on the Special Report from the Select Committee on Agriculture.

Mr. Peart: The Government have taken careful note of the Select Committee's criticisms and helpful suggestions. They will bear these in mind in their present consideration of the future pattern of the Select Committee system, and in their subsequent recommendations to the House. It is not proposed to issue a White Paper.

Mr. Watkins: May I express to my right hon. Friend my bitter disappointment that he cannot issue a White Paper, since the Committee spent a good deal of time analysing, as the first specialist Committee, the workings and the future and the attitude of the Executive towards specialist Committees? I should have


thought that a White Paper was the very thing to discuss in the House.

Mr. Peart: I should have thought not. I had a large part in setting up this Committee, and it was always understood—my predecessor said it—that it was the Government's intention to establish experimentally for this Session two new Committees. One was the Select Committee on Agriculture. It has worked well. We must wait.

Mr. Jopling: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that by taking this action, having already wound up the Committee because it did the proper job of this House, he is adding insult to injury?

Mr. Peart: No, there is no insult here. The hon. Member, who takes a great interest in this, and was a distinguished member of the Committee, should not feel sensitive about this. I suggest that he and I love agriculture, in the best sense, and want to help it, but the Committee was set up for an experiment.

Dr. John Dunwoody: Does my right hon. Friend not accept that the failure to issue a White Paper casts some doubt on his attitude towards Select Committees as a whole? Is this a precedent for the future?

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friend should know that I believe strongly in the creation of Select Committees; already, this Session, I have set up others. I merely said that we should see how they go. It may be that this Select Committee will be established permanently one day, but it was set up as an experiment, and we must look to the experiment later.

Mr. Hooson: As this was a very important experiment and the special Report of the Committee was an all-party Report, is it not incumbent on the Government to state their views on the considered views in that Report?

Mr. Peart: I will, of course, bear this in mind. I have said that.

Mr. Godber: Whatever views the right hon. Gentleman may have on this matter, would he not acknowledge that there is general concern on both sides of the House about it? Would he not, therefore, reconsider his approach, and see whether

it would not be worth while to make these facts available for the House to judge for itself?

Mr. Peart: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I was much more sympathetic to Select Committees than he was. I pressed this when I was in Opposition. I am anxious that we should have a careful survey of the experiments which we have had with the various Select Committees; then the House must decide.

Mr. Hazell: If my right hon. Friend cannot issue a White Paper on the Select Committee's Report, can he tell us when the House will be able to debate the Report?

Mr. Peart: I cannot. I have said that we shall bear it in mind.

Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that, although he and his Government appear very little interested in Select Committees and, in particular, the Select Committee on Agriculture, the farmers and the people of this country have taken considerable note of what was done?

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman should not say that. I took a great interest. I was the first Minister to appear before the Select Committee, and I instructed my Department to collaborate and help in every way. He ought not, therefore, to say that.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that supplementary questions and answers, if they become long, exclude other hon. Members who are anxious to have their Questions raised in the House.

INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (STAND-BY CREDIT)

Mr. Iain Macleod: (by Private Notice) asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will make a statement on the approach made by Her Majesty's Government to the International Monetary Fund concerning a new stand-by credit.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Roy Jenkins): I announced in my Budget speech my intention to discuss with our creditors, including the International Monetary Fund, the phasing of our repayments of external debt.
As a method of refinancing these repayments, including the repurchases which are falling due this year in respect of our 1965 I.M.F. drawing, there have been discussions in recent weeks with the staff of the I.M.F. of the possibilities of further stand-by facilities.
I have every reason to expect a satisfactory conclusion, but no formal application has yet been made, the documentation has not yet been finally settled, and the matter will have to go to the executive board of the I.M.F.
A full statement will be made to the House when the arrangements are complete, and my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary has already announced that any Letter of Intent will be published.
In the meantime, it would be wrong for me to give piecemeal indications of matters which are currently under negotiation beyond saying that there will be nothing contrary to the policy outlined in my Budget speech.

Mr. Macleod: I have three points to put to the Chancellor. First, since we are to rise next week for the Whitsun Recess, will the right hon. Gentleman do everything he can to ensure that the statement and the Letter of Intent are released before we rise, and, in particular, will he make the Letter available in the Vote Office a few hours before he makes the statement so that there can be no misunderstanding as between the two?
Second, does this approach mean that payments now becoming due will be postponed for up to four years and, therefore, become the responsibility of the next Administration?
Third, does not this humiliating approach mean that for the fifth consecutive year the Government's targets have been destroyed? What new proposals has the Chancellor in place of those which have proved so disastrous for our country?

Mr. Jenkins: I think that the timetable is such that the processes to which I referred will not be completed—certainly not before the House adjourns—before the House comes back. It will, therefore, be possable to inform the House as soon as they are complete.
I shall consider the right hon. Gentleman's point about putting the Letter of Intent in the Vote Office or publishing it

in a way which is most convenient for the House.
Next, the matter of the payments now becoming due. We paid the February instalment of 200 million dollars. We propose to pay the May instalment. The effect will be to reduce and not to increase our debt to the I.M.F.
On the general matter, I believe that it is right to continue with the policies which I have stated. I have never underestimated the difficulties of putting our balance of payments right.

Mr. Dickens: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind two points during the course of his negotiations: first, that any attempt to impose further restrictions on economic growth in this country will have the most damaging long-term effects for the future of the economy; second, as our total short-term borrowings since October, 1964, almost exactly equal the private outflow of capital, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the need to restrict the outflow of that capital to advanced industrial countries abroad?

Mr. Jenkins: I understand my hon. Friend's anxieties about economic growth, to which I attach the greatest possible importance, but I recollect, also, that great concern was expressed about the effect on economic growth of the Letter of Intent of November, 1967, and that in the year following we had the most rapid economic growth for the past four years.
On my hon. Friend's second point, it is possible, as he points out, to take a very exaggerated view of our net indebtedness problem, but difficult issues are involved in drawing the conclusion which he draws, which I do not fully share, which he and I have debated on many occasions, and which, no doubt, we shall debate again in the future.

Mr. Biffen: Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that on the last occasion when a Declaration of Intention was published, it referred to certain domestic policy undertakings, such as the statutory incomes policy? Can he confirm that the Letter of Intent which is now proposed to be signed will confirm that the Government intend to proceed with legislation on trade union reform?

Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Gentleman must not try to compete with his hon.


Friend the Member for Worcestershire, South (Sir G. Nabarro). I will not be put in the position of having either to deny something or confirm it. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] No, I shall not answer. I have made quite clear that if, in advance of the publication of a full document—the same applied to a Budget statement—one is asked to confirm or deny something, it is often easy to deny something but by so doing and then refusing to confirm or deny something else one immediately creates a prejudiced position. With respect, therefore, I regard the hon. Gentleman's question as in the same category as that of the hon. Member for Worcestershire, South on a previous occasion.

Mr. Sheldon: Can my right hon. Friend say whether he will refuse to accept any arbitrary figure of money supply which might be part of the conditions of this loan, as that involves a sphere about which very little is known as it applies to this country? Further, will he say that, if the conditions of the loan involve an increase of the deflationary policy which, in the past, has led only to fresh loans, he will reject that as a possible solution?

Mr. Jenkins: The first part of my hon. Friend's question falls into the same category as that of the hon. Member for Oswestry (Mr. Biffen). On the second part, I repeat to my hon. Friend that there will be nothing which will be contradictory to the policy outlined in my Budget Statement.

Sir G. Nabarro: The right hon. Gentleman labours his Budget statement. Will he now confirm or deny—repeat: confirm or deny—that, when he framed his Budget statement, he anticipated the progressive decline in our balance of payments as manifest by the March deficit of £52 million and the April deficit of £59 million? Will he confirm or deny that he foresaw this declining and worsening position?

Mr. Jenkins: I know that the hon. Gentleman has great experience of the witness box, but he should not put his questions too much in that form. It is certainly true that, when I framed my Budget Statement, I did not expect, bearing in mind that the ending of the United States dock strike was likely to be difficult

and the effects of the Ford strike, that the April trade figures would be substantially better than they were.

Mr. Albu: In view of the timing of the negotiations which my right hon. Friend has now described to the House, is not the speculation about the content of the negotiations extremely untimely in itself?

Mr. Jenkins: It is somewhat premature. Of course, I understand the attitude of hon. Members, on both sides, towards this important matter. I do not in the least feel that this should not be the case. I also feel, however, and I think that this will be generally accepted by the House, that any Government indulging in international negotiations must do so confidentially and then must defend the position to the House, which I am fully prepared to do.

Dr. Bennett: Will the Chancellor make it clear to the House whether the facilities for which he is making application do or do not carry with them certain trigger clauses, as is popularly said, and whether he is prepared to accept these clauses if they are imposed?

Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Member should not—as, I am sure, he does not—believe everything that he reads in the newspapers. I must again repeat that I am not disclosing the Letter of Intent beyond saying that I reiterate, as my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary said yesterday, that there is no question of my signing anything which is contrary to the policy I outlined in my Budget statement, or which does not enable me to be responsible to this House for Government economic policy.

Mr. Park: Does my right hon. Friend understand that it seems to many of us, as has happened before in these matters, that perhaps he is being asked to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted and to declare his views only when they are too late to be effective? Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this practice contains serious dangers for the effectiveness of Parliamentary democracy?

Mr. Jenkins: The House is taking, and I welcome the fact, certain opportunities of expressing its view, and I take note of its view as expressed in various ways. It would not, however,


be correct or sensible constitutional doctrine to say that any Government, in engaging in international negotiations, should do so through the channel of the House of Commons. This is not possible constitutionally and has never been the case. The Government must negotiate and must take responsibility for the results.

Sir C. Osborne: How far has the worsening economic situation, which has forced the Chancellor to go for another loan, affected his own estimate of a surplus of £500 million on the balance of payments for the present year, and what new figure does he now offer to the House?

Mr. Jenkins: I am not announcing any new figure. I think that we can get, and must get, a substantial figure—

Sir C. Osborne: This year?

Mr. Jenkins: We must certainly go for, and it is still obtainable, a substantial figure of surplus in this financial year. I am not, however, announcing a figure

Mr. Barnett: Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that there is no need to get hysterical about applying for a re-phasing of debts which are massively exceeded by our assets? At the same time, will he assure the House that the level of growth to which he referred in his Budget speech will not be reduced and that he still plans to go for a level of growth of at least 3 per cent. in the forthcoming year?

Mr. Jenkins: I must point out, as I said in my Budget speech, that estimates of future levels of growth are, like all estimates, subject to a margin of error both ways. I must also point out that last year we substantially exceeded the target of growth which I aimed at in my Budget.

Mr. Stratton Mills: Can the Chancellor say whether, during the discussions, the International Monetary Fund considered the recent Budget to be adequate or inadequate?

Mr. Jenkins: The important point here is that, as I have indicated to the House, any Letter of Intent which I may sign will not be contradictory in any way to the policy outlined in my Budget speech.

Mr. Michael Foot: Since the Chancellor says, and I accept his statement, that the Letter of Intent will go no further than and will not contradict his Budget Statement, would it not be possible to refer the International Monetary Fund to his Budget Statement?
Secondly, will my right hon. Friend deal with this point? Many of us are very much concerned, before any Letter is sent, to debate other matters which have appeared in previous Letters of Intent, such as Article 13 of the previous Letter, which made certain assurances about capital movements, which have greatly contributed to our economic difficulties.

Mr. Jenkins: What I said was that the Letter of Intent will be in no way contradictory to my Budget Statement, but I would not claim that my Budget Statement pointed out everything so perfectly that it should be repeated in all circumstances.

Sir G. Nabarro: Hear, hear.

Mr. Jenkins: I see that I carry the House with me on that.
Referring to the previous Letter of Intent, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) made such a striking speech in the first debate to which I had to reply after taking up my present office, I can say without hesitation that there was nothing in that Letter which has in any way dictated my actions since then. I have had to take difficult measures since then, but I have taken all of them, and they have gone beyond the Letter of Intent, not because I had to do so because of the Letter but because I regarded them as right in the circumstances.

Mr. Thorpe: Is the Chancellor aware that we note his undertaking to lay before the House the details of any arrangement which is arrived at? Is he further aware that it is quite impossible for any Government, of any complexion, to discuss the details before any arrangement is arrived at? Is he also aware that it is the hope of most of us that he will get the best possible arrangement for this country and that in that we wish him well?

Mr. Jenkins: I am most grateful to the right hon. Gentleman, who appears


to me to express the correct constitutional doctrine with all the authority of the leader of a party which has had great experience of government.

Mr. Orme: While I agree with my right hon. Friend that the Government must make up their own mind, take part in the negotiations, arrive at a decision and report back to the House, may I ask whether he would not accept that, at the same time, there is grave anxiety in the House that the Letter of Intent or the discussions may lead to possible interference in our domestic policy and an effect upon deflation and, possibly, unemployment? Therefore, will not the Chancellor try to have written into the Letter a policy for growth and expansion, which is the only way out of our economic difficulties?

Mr. Jenkins: I have said before that I understand the anxiety of hon. Members, on both sides. I have made it clear that the object of my policy is to maintain the highest possible level of growth combined with an improvement in the balance of payments. I believe it to be necessary to pursue both those objects. It is also necessary to appreciate that during the past year we were more successful in growth than in the balance of payments. I have these points in mind all the time. I have them in mind in framing the Letter of Intent.

Mr. Ridsdale: As soon as the Chancellor publishes the Letter of Intent, can we be promised an immediate debate in the House to test the opinion of the House? But, better still constitutionally, would it not be much more honourable of the Government to test opinion in the country?

Mr. Jenkins: The point made by the hon. Member is neither very relevant nor original. I certainly envisage that the Letter of Intent will be published, as I have undertaken that it will be and as was the case with the last Letter of Intent, which I did not sign but which it fell to me to carry out, and as was not the case with the numerous previous Letters, three of them written by the right hon. Member for Barnett (Mr. Maudling) and one by the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd), which were not published. We have every intention of publishing it.

Mr. Macleod: Can the Chancellor clarify one point? The last two sets of trade figures have been very bad. One of them was available yesterday and the other only on the morning of Budget day. In the light of that deteriorating situation, how can the right hon. Gentleman still claim today that his Budget judgment and proposals are as valid today as he thought they were then?

Mr. Jenkins: Any Chancellor who tried to form a Budget judgment on the basis of the expectations, whether true or false, of the trade figures of one or even two months would be taking an excessively short-term view of the situation.

Mr. Atkinson: While we fully appreciate the Chancellor's reluctance to deal piecemeal with any aspect of the Letter of Intent, he has referred repeatedly to negotiations. Will he say whether those negotiations are concerned with the mechanics of the facilities to be offered that is, repayment, and so on—or with aspects of policy to be pursued by the Government?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think that I can add to what I have said previously about not disclosing the position piecemeal.

Several hon. Members: Several hon. Membersrose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on.

ARMY HELICOPTERS (COLLISION)

Mr. Murray: Mr. Murray (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he will make a statement on the helicopter collision at Chattenden Barracks this morning.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Denis Healey): The accident referred to occurred this morning at Chattenden Barracks, Kent, between two Army helicopters. I regret to say that the two pilots and the passenger in one of the helicopters were killed.
An immediate inquiry will be held.

Mr. Murray: I am sure that my right hon. Friend would want to pass on the sympathy of the House to the relatives and colleagues of those killed in Army


service, which, even in peacetime, is still very dangerous.
Would my right hon. Friend say whether the findings of the inquiry are to be made public? Will he further say whether he considers that the safety instructions regarding the use of helicopters, particularly over built-up areas, are adequate?

Mr. Healey: I am sure that the House would agree with my hon. Friend in wishing to express our sympathy to the next-of-kin of those concerned.
As to publishing the results of the board of inquiry, I would like to consider that matter. If it seems to be in the public interest to do so, I will certainly do so.
On the questtion of the safety regulations governing the use of helicopters, I have no reason to believe that they were not observed on this occasion. This is one of the matters which the board of inquiry will be investigating.

DEFENCE (MULTI-ROLE COMBAT AIRCRAFT)

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Denis Healey): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I wish to make a statement.
As the House knows, four European Governments—West Germany, Italy, Holland and the United Kingdom—have been working together over the past year to harmonise their national requirements for a military aircraft which would enter service in the later 1970s. Feasibility studies have shown that these requirements can be met in a multi-rôle aircraft built to a substantially common design.
Representatives of West Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom have today signed Memoranda of Understanding under which they will co-operate on the next phase of Project Definition, which will last about a year; and I hope that within a month or two the Dutch Government will also sign.
The countries co-operating are likely to require over 1,000 aircraft, of which the Royal Air Force plans to take about a third. We propose to introduce it in 1976 in the tactical strike and reconnaissance rôle and subsequently in the

air defence and maritime strike rôles. We are thus planning eventually to replace Vulcans, Buccaneers and Phantoms by variants of a single basic design. This will have very substantial advantages in the logistic and training fields.
By sharing the cost of developing and producing this aircraft, the European countries concerned will meet their defence needs much more cheaply than any one of them could on its own. Technically, it can help to provide a solid foundation for the future of the aerospace industry in Europe. The British Aircraft Corporation, Messerschmitt-Boelkow, Fiat and Fokker have formed the Panavia Company jointly to develop and produce the aircraft. Although the engine and avionics will not be chosen until the project has been more closely defined, importance will be attached to making the project entirely European.
Agreement on this project marks a great step forward in harmonising the operational thinking of the major European N.A.T.O. Governments, and in demonstrating their conviction that in the field of advanced technology, no less than that of defence, survival depends on unity. For these reasons it has a political significance for Western Europe extending well beyond the military and industrial needs it will meet.

Mr. Corfield: May I, first, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, welcome the general tenor of the statement by the Secretary of State, particularly in view of the urgent need for a tactical reconnaissance strike aircraft replacement.
Could the right hon. Gentleman be a little more specific? He says that the engines and avionics will not be chosen until a later date, which means, of course, that there is no automatic selection of a Rolls-Royce engine. Will he bear in mind the enormous importance to this country, and to Europe, of a Rolls-Royce engine being chosen when the time comes?
As there is no automatic choice, will he also tell us whether we can be assured that B.A.C. will not be relegated to any subordinate rôle over the airframe?

Mr. Healey: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. The Government are very conscious of the considerations about the engine. We believe that Rolls-Royce


can and will win this competition on merit. Our partners, naturally, want this demonstrated, as I believe it will be in the next few months.
As to B.A.C., I can say that the company is highly satisfied with the basis upon which it is collaborating with the new Panavia Company to develop and produce the aircraft.

Mr. MacDermot: While welcoming my right hon. Friend's statement, may I return to the question of engines. I agree with my right hon. Friend that the Rolls-Royce engine should be able to win the contract on merit, but would he also bear in mind the vitally important political consideration that this European aircraft should be genuinely a European aircraft? Will Her Majesty's Government press this most strongly in negotiations?

Mr. Healey: I can certainly give that assurance. I intended to imply it in the words of my statement.

Mr. McMaster: Will the right hon. Gentleman take care to see that in the division of work on this aircraft a reasonable proportion of the design work will rest in this country?

Mr. Healey: I can say that we have this assurance already.

Mr. Richard: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of us on both sides of the House regard this as a very major step forward in European co-operation? Could he tell us whether in his opinion the major difficulties, which there clearly were, political, technological and military, over the development of this aircraft, have now been overcome?

Mr. Healey: This is a project the development of which will last for another six years, and production for probably seven years after that. I would be taking my life too much in my hands if I said that all the major difficulties have already been overcome. What I can say is that all the major difficulties so far foreseen have been overcome.

Mr. James Davidson: May I say how very strongly we welcome the right hon. Gentleman's statement. Is there any possibility that France may be brought into the project, along with the other nations

which are to co-operate? How is it proposed to reconcile the rôle of a tactical strike aircraft with that of a maritime strike aircraft, in view of the lack of aircraft carriers and the fact that the range will no doubt be restricted?

Mr. Healey: It is open to other countries, if they wish to do so, to join the project on the terms already agreed by the three Governments who have signed the Memoranda, and to accept as a basis the project as already defined. I very much hope that it will be possible for the French Government to join the project at a future stage. So far, the French Government have been unable to state a firm requirement for an aircraft of this nature, and the aircraft being developed by the Dassault Company does not meet the operational requirements of the other countries concerned.
The hon. Gentleman is probably aware that the Buccaneer is now meeting the requirements for a maritime strike and land strike required by the Royal Navy and the Air Force.

Mr. Luard: Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the economics of a project of this kind would depend vitally on the number of aircraft finally produced? Can he say how firm are the commitments to something like 1,000 aircraft which he mentioned, to be made by the other Governments?

Mr. Healey: At this stage no Government is prepared to commit itself finally to a precise number of aircraft. To decide on the way in which work is shared, it has been necessary for the Governments concerned to give an estimate of their likely requirements. I would remind the House again that production of the aircraft will not start until 1975 for Germany, and 1976 for Britain. We have envisaged that this will meet, for the Royal Air Force, the needs of about two-thirds of its combat front line, and almost the whole of Germany's combat front line.
Since, as the House will understand, Germany does not have all the rôles in N.A.T.O. which the R.A.F. has the order of magnitude I have stated is one which is likely to remain valid. It gives us a collective domestic market equivalent to that for any American aircraft. On this basis we should be able to sell further


numbers of this aircraft to third countries, even in competition with anything the United States can produce.

Mr. Hastings: I welcome the Secretary of State's statement. Will this aircraft have a terrain-following capability? What will its approximate reconnaissance range be? Can he assure the House that there will be no question of trading the design leadership in this country for the engine contract?

Mr. Healey: The hon. Gentleman, who has great experience in these matters, will not expect me to be over-precise on the range and radius of action. The aircraft will have all the avionic equipment which will equip it to fulfil its reconnaissance and strike rôles both at low level over ground and in a high-low-high profile over the sea. To give an indication of its radius of action, I may say that it will be comparable with that of the Buccaneer II, roughly the same.

Mr. Alfred Morris: I welcome my right hon. Friend's statement and I pay tribute to the signal contribution made to the success of this project by the British industry. Can he say anything about the approach of the French to this project? Can he say why they dropped out and does he see any possibility of their reversing that decision?

Mr. Healey: The British industry is making a major contribution to the design of the aircraft. The House will recognise that the experience of the British Aircraft Corporation, particularly in swing-wing, which is one of the features agreed for the aircraft, guarantee it a continuing leading rôle in design. Mr. Heath, of the Warton design team, is one of the project directors. I think that I have said all that it would be right for me to say about France at this stage. The French never joined in the F104 consortium, or the consortium formed to consider the production of this aircraft. During recent months they have shown an interest in joining in, but at the moment they are not able to state a clear requirement for this type of aircraft and the area in which their own industrial firms are exploring does not meet the operational needs of the other countries concerned. But I very much hope that this situation may change as time moves on.

Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: The right hon. Gentleman's statement will be welcomed on both sides of the House. We are delighted that some agreement has come about. It seems that the capability of the TSR2 is now to be replaced by this aircraft. Will he bear in mind the need to go through the phases as quickly as possible? In an earlier answer, he said that production would start in Germany a year before it started in this country—1975 in Germany. We hope that that does not mean that the design leadership is going to Germany, because after the experience of the Anglo-French VG, the Jaguar, and the Concorde, it is time that design leadership rested in this country.
Will the right hon. Gentleman bear particularly in mind that our avionic industry is unique in its capability and in its results in Europe and that we have an equal claim to that work as for the engines?

Mr. Speaker: That was a very long question.

Mr. Healey: I fully endorse the latter remarks of the hon. Gentleman. Germany wants this aircraft in a different rôle essentially for ground support rather than strike reconnaissance and it will be 15 per cent. different from the aircraft we require. This does not in any way affect the distribution of design effort in the development phase.
I make it clear that this aircraft is not a replacement for the TSR2, because the rôle of the TSR2, which was to have been introduced in the middle of 1960s, when originally designed, is not feasible in the same degree in the environment which we expect to obtain in the European theatre in the later 1970s.

Mr. Brooks: As the Germans will require roughly twice as many of these planes as we will, how will this affect the allocation of research and development costs? Will my right hon. Friend say at what stage it will be possible for those participating in the scheme to reconsider their decision in the light of any possible escalation of costs?

Mr. Healey: The German requirement is about 50 per cent. greater than ours, not twice as great. Although the overall work will be allocated in relation to the number of aircraft required, we now have an integrated company and inevitably it


will wish, as will the Governments concerned, to take advantage of the peculiar national skills which may be made available, for example, the unique facilities available at Warton for various types of testing.
Provision is made in the memoranda of understanding for countries to withdraw from the project without penalty at the end of a series of defined stages, but, of course, we are not going into this project with any intention of withdrawing.

Mr. Corfield: Will the right hon. Gentleman clear up one possible misunderstanding? He talked of introducing the aircraft in 1976 and then spoke later of producing it in 1976. Production is generally several years ahead of introduction.

Mr. Healey: I should have said introduction. We expect to introduce the aircraft for the Royal Air Force in 1976. The Germans hope to introduce their version into their air force in 1975.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Membersrose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I must protect the business of the day.

NURSES (PAY AND CONDITIONS)

Dame Irene Ward: On a point of order. I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 for the purpose of discussing a matter of specific and urgent public importance, namely,
the breakdown of the National Whitley Council negotiations on nurses' pay and conditions of service.
This, of course, is a matter which is specific, so I need not deal with that aspect. It is of great importance, both to the nurses and hospital services throughout the country, that there shall not be any further delay in arriving at a satisfactory solution to the claim which has been put forward by the staff side. It is a matter of tremendous importance.
The House will remember that not long ago the Secretary of State for Social Services received on the steps of the Elephant and Castle one of the more militant sections of the nursing profession on the question of nurses' pay and conditions.

He also told the House on Monday of this week that he had great sympathy with the student nurses, from which the House accepted the view that there would be a satisfactory solution arising out of the new National Whitley Council negotiations.
I remind the House that the management side takes its instructions from the Minister. If the Minister can both meet the more militant section of the nursing profession and express sympathy with the student nurses, a sentiment with which we all agree, it is about time that Parliament had the right to say what it thinks about the matter. That is why I am seeking to move the Adjournment of the House—so that Parliament may express its view. The Minister would then be able to instruct the management side of the Whitley Council on the views of the House about this great problem.
I hope that, now that I have put these matters as clearly and as concisely as I could, the House will agree that it is time it had a chance to state its own views and that matters of wide importance throughout the British Isles should not be left to a Minister who then instructs the management side not to meet the requirements of the staff side. I want to get to the bottom of this affair. I am tired of being dictated to by a Minister. I should like Parliament to take its own decisions on this matter.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that she thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
the breakdown of the Whitley Council negotiations on nurses' pay and conditions of service".
As the House knows, under the revised Standing Order No. 9 I am directed to take into account the several factors set out in the Order, but to give no reason for my decision. I have listened very carefully to the representations made by the hon. Lady, but I have to rule that her submission does not fall within the provisions of the revised Standing Order and that, therefore, I cannot submit her application to the House.

Dame Irene Ward: On a point of order. You, Mr. Speaker, have always


been gracious enough, on every application of this kind, to say that notice had been given to you. I should not like it to go on record that I, too, had not given you notice that I wished to raise this matter.

Mr. Speaker: I apologise to the hon. Lady, who was indeed courteous enough to give me notice.
I would remind the House that under the Standing Order notice should be given to Mr. Speaker, if possible, by 12 o'clock. It is most difficult for Mr. Speaker to deal with a Standing Order application if it comes suddenly during the afternoon. Therefore, normally, if hon. Members can give sufficient notice, it is of great convenience to Mr. Speaker, who then has time to consider the issue before he comes into the Chamber.
I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady, and I am sorry that I neglected to say so.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (REDISTRIBUTION OF SEATS) ACT 1949 (AMENDMENT)

4.12 p.m.

Dr. M. P. Winstanley: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949, to provide for the election of two Members for each constituency with an electoral roll in excess of 100,000, and for purposes connected therewith.
I shall not detain the House for long on this simple, though desirable and necessary, Measure. I know that if I speak for too long, Mr. Speaker, you will call me to order, but I think that I have correctly interpreted Standing Order No. 13 in assuming that I am not obliged to occupy the full allotted span of 10 minutes.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is quite right. He is not obliged to speak for that length of time.

Dr. Winstanley: I shall endeavour to sit down as quickly as I can, Sir.
In short, my simple Measure is designed merely to enable constituencies with electoral rolls in excess of 100,000 to return two Members of Parliament to this House. It is a Bill of limited application, since there are few hon. Members in this category.
It will be realised that if and when the Government implement the recommendation of the Boundary Commission there will be no such Members and, therefore, the Bill at that time would have no application, but it is desirable to bring it forward now so as to safeguard the future position.
There are three reasons that I will put to the House for doing something urgently about the very large constituencies. First, it is important to spread the load on individual Members more equitably. I emphasise that the hon. Members concerned would not themselves push this matter and have not done so.
Secondly, we should do something to equalise the opportunity of constituents to have contact with a Member of Parliament. The share of the time of an hon. Member with over 100,000 constituents that each individual constituent may occupy must, by the nature of things,


be less than the share of time of a Member with a constituency of only 20,000. This is a marginal point. I put the three points in reverse order of importance.
The third and most important reason is to ensure that the representation of the people by Members of Parliament in the House is on as equal a basis as can reasonably be managed. I fully understand that it is not possible to have exactly arithmetically equal representation, but we should endeavour, and the House always has endeavoured, to try to make each hon. Member represent a constituency broadly equal to another.
We feel strongly in the House that we must have a system of one man, one vote. But if we are to have such a system, whether in this country or elsewhere, we must also pay some attention to having one vote of one value. Hon. Members cannot escape the logic of the argument that a vote cast by a Member representing more than 100,000 constituents could he neutralised, indeed negated, by the vote of an hon. Member representing only 20,000 constituents. That is a denial of the kind of democratic process on which the House is based.
Ever since the days of the Reform Bill, this House has concerned itself with trying to equalise Parliamentary constituencies. It has not been wildly successful.
Immediately after the war a scheme was advanced whereby the Parliamentary Commissioners were required to take note of the average size of a constituency and to take steps if any constituency exceeded the average by 33½ per cent. Hon. Members who do the arithmetic will find that this is impossible. If one takes the average figure of 50,000, once a constituency gets to the 33½ per cent. mark and above, say 70,000-odd, by halving it the average size is reduced and there has to be a corresponding modification. Arithmetically, it proved impossible although it was a desirable aim.
We have had successive difficulties over the years with the implementation of the recommendations of the Boundary Commissioners, about which there has always been argument as to the amount of delay. At the moment, there is argument about this matter. I would draw attention to an article in The Times today, concerned with the boundary recommendations which are under consideration.

The article says that the Home Secretary already has the recommendation for England and for Scotland and hopes that something will be done soon.
The Times then reports certain regrettable and perhaps fruitless speculation as to who will benefit by the carrying out of revisions of Parliamentary boundaries at the moment. There are always accusations of gerrymandering when there is a proposal to revise constituency boundaries. Sometimes they are proved to be ill-founded, sometimes, the would-be gerrymanderers are shown to have got their arithmetic wrong.
At this stage, we should try to forget this kind of argument and concentrate on the more important argument with which this narrow Measure is concerned as to what can be done for the very large constituencies if the boundary recommendations are not implemented.
I accept that there may be reasons for the Government to say, "We cannot implement the Boundary Commission's report at the moment, in advance of possible changes in local government structure, in that it might be unwise to finalise new Parliamentary constituency boundaries which might cut across new local authority boundaries." I do not accept this argument. I hope that, when the time comes, the Government will bring in these changes; I believe that they will, in fact, do so. But if they do not, we must do something about the large constituency and provide the essential safeguards.
I should like to point out the constituencies with which I am concerned, and to make my own position clear. Those who know my constituency, Cheadle, will notice on the last register that the electoral roll is 98,909. Before it is assumed that I am indulging in a selfless quixotic act I must point out that, when the young "Y" voters come on to the register on 1st October the electoral roll will be 100,035. Therefore, I have to declare an interest.
Billericay had a roll of 109,319 on the 1968 register; Epping, 102,872; Portsmouth, Langstone, 102,582. I wish to mention one constituency especially, because the hon. Member who represents it is one of the sponsors of the Bill, the constituency of Meriden.
Hon. Members will recollect that the hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Speed) came into this House after a by-election only a year ago. Since then he has distinguished himself as an active and industrious Member. What we do not realise is that his constituency then had 78,000 constituents, but in October, 1969, will have 106,000. A growth of this kind shows the necessity of providing a safeguard. Constituencies can change at such a rapid rate, but we know that, for reasons which may be justifiable, changes as a result of the Boundary Commission's recommendations do not take place at the same rapid rate. Therefore, a safeguard of this kind will be of tremendous help.
I return briefly to my three reasons. None of the Members concerned would wish to advance the argument that he cannot manage, or that his duties are too heavy to discharge. It is manifest that these hon. Members—I do not speak for myself—can and do discharge their duties extremely effectively. But it is right to take note of the tremendous burdens borne by some hon. Members. Some of them write upwards of 8,000 letters in a year. Their postbag is more than double that of any of their colleagues. It is right that I should recognise, not only as a Member but also as a doctor, the kind of burdens which are borne by hon. Members of all parties in these circumstances.
My second point was on the share of a member's time by constituents. I say nothing more of that.
But on the third point, one vote, one value, surely we should look at some of the small constituencies. The electorate for 1966 of Birmingham, Ladywood was 25,294. We will shortly have a new Member for Ladywood. It might even be that I shall have another hon. Friend, but I may not always vote the same way as that Member. It would be regrettable if my vote, representing 100,000 constituents, were to be neutralised or negatived by the vote of a Member representing perhaps 20,000 constituents.
Manchester, Exchange had an electorate of 26,400 in 1966.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he is introducing a Bill under the Ten Minute Rule.

Dr. Winstanley: I am very sorry, Mr. Speaker. I will immediately come to a conclusion.
I hope that the House will feel that it ought to do something. It could be done in other ways, for example by a card vote, but that would introduce an impossible distinction between Members. For example, how would one move the Closure? Would we need 98 Members plus the hon. Member for Billericay, and so on, if certain Members had two votes? It is important to have one member with one vote. Providing this kind of remedy, to Members for a large constituency, would serve this purpose.
I remind the House that in the past, Blackburn. Bolton, Preston, Derby, Oldham, Southampton and Stockport were represented at one time by two Members. That system worked very well and it worked even better for the university seats.
The safeguard may not be needed now—I hope not—because I trust that the Boundary Commission's recommendations will be implemented. But, by bringing my Bill forward we will have a safeguard which will last not merely during the lifetime of this Government, but of future Governments, and we will always protect the rights of the constituencies and the constituents rather than Members themselves.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members that Bills under the Ten Minute Rule should be introduced in a speech of not longer than 10 minutes. If it goes beyond that time, it starts a process of extending the time.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Dr. Winstanley, Mr. Moonman, Mr. Newens, and Mr. Speed.

HOUSE OF COMMONS (REDISTRIBUTION OF SEATS) ACT 1949 (AMENDMENT)

Bill to amend the House of Commons (Redistribution of Seats) Act 1949, to provide for the election of two Members for each constituency with an electoral roll in excess of 100,000, and for purposes connected therewith, presented accordingly, and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 13th June and to be printed. [Bill 156.]

Orders of the Day — FINANCE BILL

(Clauses 7, 8, 36, 38, 43 and 44, and Schedule 6)

Considered in Committee [Progress 13th May.]

[Mr. SYDNEY IRVING in the Chair]

Clause 36

EXEMPTION WHERE TOP VALUE IS £1,500 OR LESS

4.26 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: I beg to move Amendment No. 7, in page 50, line 11, leave out '1969' and insert '1967'.

The Chairman: With this Amendment we can discuss Amendments No. 8, in page 50, line 11, leave out '1969' and insert '1968'; and No. 16, in page 52, line 6, at end add:
(2) To the extent that levy has been paid which would not have been payable had this section been in operation on and since 6th April, 1967, a sum equal to the amount of such payment shall be repaid to the payer or his personal representative with interest thereon from the date of such payment to the date of such repayment at the rate prescribed for the purpose of this section by the Treasury.

Mr. Page: I am grateful to you, Mr. Irving, for saying that we can discuss Amendments Nos. 8 and 16 with Amendment No. 7. These are all Amendments to Clause 36 which proposes exemption from betterment levy of transactions of a market value of not more than £1,500.
The exemption is stated in the Clause to date from 5th April, 1969. Betterment levy is payable in respect of chargeable acts or events—that is, the sale or the development of property. The date, 5th April, 1969, relates to chargeable acts or events occurring after that date, so for some time to come owners of property will be paying betterment levy on these small transactions which have taken place in the past. I say "small transactions". They are referred to as small transactions in the White Paper announcing the exemption, and the Minister has referred to them as small cases. Therefore, I presume they are intended to deal with plots of land rather than land and buildings.
The fact that owners of property or those who have disposed of property before 5th April, 1969, will still be called upon to pay betterment levy, whereas their neighbours who dispose of land now, if the transaction does not exceed £1,500, will not be called upon to pay the levy, will cause bitterness and resentment—a sense of injustice between citizen and citizen. For example, those who sold on 4th April and those who sold on 6th April will not see why or what principle applies to distinguish between them in the payment of betterment levy. The Amendment seeks to remove injustice by altering the date from 5th April, 1969, to 5th April, 1967, on which date the Land Commission Act, 1967, came into operation.
Amendment No. 16 seeks to provide for the repayment of the levy which has already been paid. This is of great importance, because a sense of injustice will be felt by those who have paid the levy and will now see others receiving exemption from levy in future. If it is right to relieve hardship occurring after 5th April, 1969, it is surely right to relieve the same hardship if it occurred in the two years before 1969 while the Act has been in operation.
Constitutional purists may be horrified at the idea of retrospective legislation, but it is constitutionally sound to pass retrospective legislation which benefits the subject. Otherwise, we should never pass indemnity Bills, we should never pass pension and superannuation Bills, we should never pass many of the marketing schemes, and so on. There is no constitutional objection to retrospection, as in this case, to benefit the citizen.
At any rate, it does not lie in the mouth of the Government to cry, "No retrospective legislation" because the Land Commission Act itself reeks of retrospection, and not for the subject, but against the subject. The introduction of betterment levy was legislation by White Paper. It took effect—to the detriment of the owners, the purchasers, and the vendors of property—one year and 130 days before it received the Royal Assent, not just back into the life of one Parliament, but back into the life of another Parliament. It was that backdating which was the trouble. It caused hardship in so many cases, and it gave rise to the need for two extra-statutory concessions


by the Government to cure that sort of hardship.
4.30 p.m.
The hardship arose to certain people who bought property during that period between September, 1965, and April, 1967. The hardship arose out of the fact that they could not use the purchase price of that property as the base value on which to calculate the development value on which the betterment levy would be chargeable. The Minister said that the hardship arose because those people had not been given proper advice professionally. What should they have been advised about? This was a White Paper. Is every owner of property to order his affairs by reference to a White Paper? Are his legal advisers to crystal gaze about whether a White Paper will become a statute? To accuse the professions of wrongly advising their clients about what may or may not go from a White Paper into legislation is merely passing the buck. I hope to show that the only fair thing to do is to treat the exemptions which are now sought to be made as dating back to 1967 and to repay those who have already paid the levy.
We are here dealing with hardship cases, and hardship falls equally upon those who have paid and are liable to pay, as upon those who would have to pay in future if the exemption in the Clause were not granted. The exemption in the Clause was introduced in broad principle in the White Paper, Modifications in Betterment Levy, Cmnd. 4001, and the Minister explained it in the debate on 28th April. If the Committee will bear with me, I should like to quote the paragraph of explanation which the Minister gave. The right hon. Gentleman said:
The first proposal in the White Paper deals with another form of hardship which was perhaps of more frequent occurrence. This was where a person who owned a small plot of land which was suitable for development decided to sll it and realise the increased value arising from planning permission with the intention of devoting the proceeds to some personal expense, essential repairs to his house, for example, or repayment of outstanding mortgage. There is no doubt that if many people who took this course had been properly advised professionally, they would have realised that the scheme of betterment levy would impose a liability upon them. But unfortunately this often did not happen.

Pausing there, when the Government produce an unintelligible Act and then blame professional advisers for not understanding it, I think that it is a little unfair. The Minister went on to say:
The White Paper acknowledges that an exception can be made in future for these small cases, and we propose that any leviable occasion whether it be a sale or development where the market value does not exceed £1,500 shall be exempt from levy."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April, 1969; Vol. 782, c. 1078–9.]
It is clear from those quotations that the Government consider that this Clause 36 provides relief from hardship.
The Bill proposes to deal with that hardship by inserting a section in the Land Commission Act, 1967. That Act already contains a number of exemptions. In Sections 55 to 62 there are exemptions for local and public bodies, for charities, for statutory undertakers, for housing associations, and so on, but there were two exemptions in that Act not unlike those which now appear in the Bill, and not unlike the one to which this Amendment applies. The exemption in Section 61 of the Land Commission Act relates to building a single dwelling-house for one's own family on a plot acquired before 23rd September, 1965, and that in Section 62 to building houses by a house-builder on plots of land which he owned before 23rd September, 1965.
Those exemptions were not very different in kind from that which is contained in this Clause. The beneficiaries under Sections 61 and 62 of the 1967 Act have never had to pay levy. They were let off as it were from the start by an exemption in the Act. The victims of the Government's failure to make exemptions such as now appear in the Bill should be put in the same position as those who were granted exemption by the 1967 Act itself. It is the same kind of exemption, and those people should be put in the same position. The Government ought to have made these exemptions in the Act. They were warned, but they pigheadedly went on and ignored the warning.
Although in many respects I agree with what Sir Henry Wells said about concessions, in one respect I do not agree with what he said in a broadcast on 22nd April last:
I have made already the point that you can't get modifications or concessions until you have actually got the number of cases to demonstrate.


In another broadcast, he said:
… I think it is also fair for me to say, and perfectly truthful for me to say, that I anticipated that we would have these hardship cases, because you can't get hardship cases put right in advance. You have to have them first.
I think that that is a little defeatist. After all, the Government were warned when the Land Commission Act was still a Bill that these hardship cases would arise.
Since the Act there have been two further hardship concessions, and they were made extra-statutorily. First, the Act said that when land was purchased after 22nd September, 1965, development value on which the levy is charged would be the difference not between the purchase price and the sale price, but between the Land Commission valuation and the sale price. That was causing hardship, and that was put right in April, 1968, when the Minister conceded, by an extra-statutory direction, that the purchase price should be the starting price for calculation if a person bought a plot for building a single house.
The second concession, made in July, 1968, allowed the purchase price to be the starting point when the land was bought for building anything other than a house but only up to £2,500 of the purchase price. The significant thing about those two concessions is that they were both retrospective. They both dated back to the commencement of operation of the Measure. I cannot recollect whether we have ever been informed if anyone who was given exemption by those extra-statutory concessions had paid the levy during the first 12 or 15 months of the operation of the Act and, if so, whether the money was returned to him—and if it was, whether there was any great administrative difficulty in doing so.
When considering the present exemptions to be granted by the Bill it is relevant to consider what is to happen to these retrospective extra-statutory concessions when they are placed alongside the Bill's non-retrospective exemptions. If the present concessions are not made retrospective in the same way as the previous ones were, there will be some extraordinary anomalies. In one case we have a limit of £2,500 for the purchase price and in the other a limit of £1,500 for the sale price.
Recently, someone writing in a legal journal said, in effect, "for heaven's sake do not amend the Act. It would only make confusion more confounded. Better scrap it altogether", with which sentiments many of us would entirely agree. But we have to live with the Act while this Government remain in office, and we are doing our best to remove much of the confusion which has followed from the passing of the Act.
So we approach the present exemptions in the Clause—exemptions for hardship cases—in the light of two similar hardship exemptions in the Act and two hardship exemptions made since the passing of the Act. There will be a bitterness and resentment on the part of those who have paid or have become liable to pay—by reason of the Government's mistake—when similar hardship cases have been exempt since the Act started, or since a period in 1968.
There will be the following five categories of hardship—three of which will qualify for relief and two of which will not. The first category consists of those who were let off from the beginning by being exempted in the Land Commission Act; the second category consists of those who have been let off in the past and will be let off in the future, under the 1968 extra-statutory directions; the third category consists of those who will be let off, under the Bill, in respect of future chargeable acts or events.
Those three categories will get relief. There are two categories which will not, unless the Amendments are accepted. The first category consists of those who would be exempted if they had sold in future, but who have already paid the levy, and the second category consists of those who have become liable to pay the levy even though if the chargeable act or event occurred after 5th April, 1969, they would, under the Bill, be exempted. When such different treatment is dealt out for the same kind of hardship the public will come to detest the Government for their inefficiency and inhumanity.
The Amendments, removing the anomalies and the injustices, could not possibly cost the Exchequer more than £1 million, and they would probably cost very much less. This is not an enormous sum, within the limits of the Budget, to


pay for righting a wrong and remedying an injustice. This matter ought not to be decided on the pounds, shillings and pence of the budgetary equation—the argument that £1 million may unbalance the Chancellor's Budget. It is a decision which should be made politically.
4.45 p.m.
Here again, I want to quote what Sir Henry Wells said in his broadcast on 22nd April, 1965. He said:
I don't know why they have not been made retrospective. This was a political decision.
He was later pressed by the interviewer, who said, "You are demanding that they be retrospective", and he said:
I am not demanding retrospection. This is entirely a matter for the politicians to decide.
It is. It is not for me to suggest how the Government should try to save themselves and improve their image, or dig themselves out of the mud or curry public favour, but in this case I should be happy—because of the happiness it would bring to many unfortunate plot-owners—to lose the advantage of continually criticising the Government for their obstinacy in sticking to their own follies in this way.
If a political decision would be administratively impossible to carry out it would merely be another folly, but again we have been told by the man who will have to administer this that it is administratively easy. I want to quote again from what Sir Henry Wells said—not from newspaper reports; I have a transcript of his broadcast, because I wanted to make certain that I had his words right. He said in his broadcast on 22nd April:
I see no difficulties from the Land Commission's point of view in making the major one retrospective. I have often heard it said that there are administrative difficulties. Well, this was said by the Press as a result of an alleged leak from a private meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Of course I wasn't there, so I don't know what really was said"—
that is rather a non sequitur—
but I want to make it very clear that from our point of view, that is the Land Commission's point of view, we see no insuperable difficulties about making these retrospective.
He was quite definite about that.
Again, when pressed by the interviewer, he said what I have in part already quoted, namely
I am not demanding retrospection. This is entirely a matter for the politicians to decide.

All I'm saying is that administratively we see no insuperble obstacle.
To sum up, to remove liability—which has already accrued on these small transactions, not exceeding £1,500—to pay back the levy already paid in respect of such transactions, as if the exemptions had been in operation since the commencement of the Act—as they should have been—is administratively possible, it is not financially prohibitive, and it is fair and just to the levy-payers.

Mr. Eric Lubbock: There is little difference between myself and the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), because although my Amendment backdates the concession only for one year and his goes back to the commencement of the Act, I go along with him in saying that retrospection, if accepted in principle, should apply to all the transactions subject to levy since the commencement of the Act. The only reason that I put down a date one year before 6th April, 1969, was that I thought that the transactions in the first year of the operation of the Land Commission must have been so minute in number as to make very little difference one way or the other.
The First Annual Report of the Land Commission shows that the amount assessed in the way of betterment levy was £462,000. If we take the 10 per cent. figure which the Minister for Planning and Land quoted in the debate, we realise that we are talking of a sum of only about £46,000 in terms of the amount collected on transactions of less value than the £1,500 top value in the first year of operation. I agree with the hon. Member for Crosby that, if there are no administrative complications, in all fairness the concession should be backdated to the beginning, and if Sir Henry Wells says that this can be done, I should be prepared to go into the Lobby in support of that proposition.
I am only trying to give the Government a face-saver which they can accept. If they are not prepared to back-date the concession to the beginning, they might be prepared to accept my Amendment as a compromise, provided that one has agreed with Sir Henry Wells, who is the expert here, that it is not administratively impossible. The broadcast to which the hon. Member referred is authoritative. If Sir Henry Wells tells us that there is no


practical difficulty, the Minister cannot say that it is not feasible. He is not the one who must operate it. It is Sir Henry Wells who must carry out the details, assuming that the political decision had been made.
The hon. Member for Crosby put his finger on the point when he said that Sir Henry Wells has handed us a decision and told us to make up our minds. That is why I am pleased that this part of the Bill is being taken in the House, since hon. Members have had so many constituency cases of suffering drawn to their attention. I hope that the Minister will see reason, even at this late hour.
The only thing with which I disagreed in the speech of the hon. Member for Crosby was about advice. Here, the Minister has a point. In all the cases which have been drawn to my attention, constituents have said that the solicitors who advised them did not draw their attention to the possible consequences of the Act. I am not talking about the period before the Bill had been published, when they had only the White Paper, but about recent dates, including one case, which I mentioned in the previous debate on 28th April, of a transaction which took place only last year.
It is disappointing that, although I mentioned this case in some detail and asked for a reply at the end of that debate, because I thought that it was of some importance, considering the personal circumstances of my constituent, which might have applied to many others—I do not pretend that it was unique—the Minister failed to reply. I wrote to him on 30th April, and have not yet had a reply about whether this constituent will get a concession from betterment levy. This is rather a poor show. I do not make a big point of it, because it is one constituency case, but I am drawing it to the attention of the Committee.
It is our right, when discussing the Finance Bill on the Floor of the House, to raise grievances before voting taxation. That is what the Finance Bill is about. So I make no apology for detaining the Committee over one individual in my constituency, a person of 79 living on social security and supplementary benefit, about whose case I have not been able to get an answer from the Minister, although I raised it in the last debate

and wrote to him immediately afterwards. It is shocking that a Minister should ignore an individual case, which may not be of much importance to him but which is important to me. I am trying to defend the interests of my constituent. That is why I am taking part in this debate.
Of course, I am as interested in the general principle as the hon. Member for Crosby, and I have agreed that there should be some retrospection. I do not agree with the Minister's argument in the debate on 28th April, that, if we introduced retrospection, we should only produce other anomalies in legislation—not that it was administratively impossible. This should be underlined so that we know what we are deciding when we vote on this matter.
The right hon. Gentleman said in that debate:
I need mention only the case of someone who sold land for just over £1,500 and who might well prove to be substantially worse off than if he had accepted a lower price and was then given retrospective exemption."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April, 1969; Vol. 782, c. 1082.]
If the Minister accepted the arguments, either of the hon. Member for Crosby or of myself, and back-dated this exemption to 1968 or 1967, there would then be people who had sold land for £1,600, who would continue to be liable to pay the levy but who, if they had known that the exemption was going to be made retrospective, would have taken £1,499 and thereby escaped.
But the amounts in these instances are bound to be very small, because we are talking not about the difference between the top value and the base value, but about the top value itself, and where someone has sold a piece of land for £1,600, that is not the amount on which the levy will be assessed. One must first deduct the base value from that, so the person who had failed to take advantage of this retrospective concession would be only a few pounds worse or better off.

The Minister for Planning and Land (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): indicated dissent.

Mr. Lubbock: The Minister shakes his head. No doubt he can mention cases. I should like him to do so, because it is important that we should


know, when making up our minds on how to vote on the Amendment.
As I understand it, the people exempted from the payment of levy would still have to pay capital gains tax. It is important that the Committee should be well aware of this provision. Therefore, we are arguing only about the difference between 40 per cent., the present amount of levy payable, and the 30 per cent. which a man would have had to pay if he had been liable to capital gains tax or, in the case of a person on a low rate of tax, two-thirds of his marginal rate. So we are not saying that large amounts would have been collected from these individuals—

Mr. Graham Page: To correct the hon. Gentleman on that point, if it were part of the garden of the residence, such a person would be exempt from capital gains tax, I think.

Mr. Lubbock: But we are talking purely about £1,500 exemption. Such a person would have to pay capital gains tax if the property were not part of his garden. Thus, in the vast majority of cases, these people will not escape liability to taxation altogether. They will be paying at some different rate, so the loss of revenue is insignificant.
I have already mentioned the total collected by the Land Commission in 1967–68, and I dare say that it was not much more in 1968–69. One of the criticisms of the Commission is that, far from being the useful revenue raiser which the Government presented it as, it has been a very poor bargain for the taxpayer. The costs of collection have vastly exceeded the amount collected.
We are not asking the Government to forgo an immense amount of revenue, which will upset the International Monetary Fund. We are dealing with a minute sum, which Sir Henry Wells says can be coped with within the administrative procedures of his Commission. That is what he said authoritatively in the broadcast quoted. We are merely arguing about the principle of retrospection. We can produce examples, if the Minister wants to hear them, of retrospection which has benefited the taxpayer. That is conclusive for me.
Particularly when I consider the individual cases of hardship to which my

attention has been drawn in my constituency, and which may be paralleled all over the country, I beg the Minister, even at this late date, to think again and come up with a generous concession, back-dated to the beginning or to the year before this Bill was published.

5.0 p.m.

Mr. K. Robinson: I think that it would be helpful if I intervened now to deal with the general issue of retrospection, although I am ready to speak again later to deal with any subsequent points.
I have already said, in the debate on 28th April, something of the justification for the £1,500 de minimis provision in Clause 36—at any rate, some of the reasons for not making that concession retrospective. The £1,500 exemption is a generous one, because it will exempt from betterment levy roughly half the cases which are currently giving rise to assessment of levy. It will do this for a loss of revenue of only 10 per cent. of the current yield.
The answer to the point of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) about costs of collection is that this will significantly, of itself, reduce the costs of collecting each £ of levy.
The issue of whether the change should be made retrospective involves matters both of administration and of principle. It would also give rise to further anomalies. On each of these three counts, the case against retrospection is a strong one, but, taking them together, the case is conclusive.
The issues of administration are, in themselves, complex. If the change were made retrospective, it would involve a cost to the Exchequer, disregarding consequentials for capital gains tax, not of the figure quoted by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), but of £2¼ million. This is the £1,500 de minimis exemption. If all the changes in the White Paper were made retrospective, the cost would be about £3¾ million. So we are not talking of "insignificant" figures, as the hon. Member for Orpington described them—

Mr. Lubbock: In quoting these figures, has the right hon. Gentleman taken account of the amount of capital gains tax which would otherwise have been payable?

Mr. Robinson: I said that, in connection with the de minimis provision, I was not taking it into account, but the hon. Member has a mistaken idea about this. He said that the vast majority of these cases would be liable to capital gains tax. In fact, experience shows that a good part of them would not be liable to capital gains tax at all—

Sir Derek Walker-Smith: Has the right hon. Gentleman caused any analysis to be made before he ventured on this estimate?

Mr. Robinson: Naturally. I have sought the advice of the Land Commission. The advice is that approximately half the cases will not be liable for capital gains tax, because approximately half relate to the sale of land forming part of the vendor's private residence.

Mr. Keith Stainton: But that is half the number. We are talking in financial terms. There is a significant difference.

Mr. Robinson: I was answering the hon. Member for Orpington, who said that the vast majority of cases would be liable to capital gains tax, because that was inaccurate—

Mr. Peter Walker: We are in Committee and it is, therefore, reasonable to intervene. This is a very important point. There could be a great discrepancy between the figures which related to gardens and are, therefore, likely to be the smallest cases, and the actual amount of money. The right hon. Gentleman says that he has made an analysis. Would he now give us the percentage in terms of money?

Mr. Robinson: I have made the analysis of the number of cases. There is no reason to believe that the difference in money would be significant. These parts of gardens, if they give rise to development value, are sold as building plots. We are talking about sales of £1,500 and under.
There were about 20,000 assessments of levy during the first two years of the operation of the Act. On the basis that about half of these have been of cases where the market value was not above £1,500, it would mean that the Land Commission would have to reconsider half of those cases again; that is, about

10,000 of them. This would be a substantial job, although it would not be insuperable.
Hon. Gentlemen opposite have in past debates made great play with purported statements by Sir Henry Wells, Chairman of the Land Commission, on this issue. The hon. Member for Crosby was a good deal more careful today. He quoted the precise words of Sir Henry. I hope that hon. Members who have travestied Sir Henry's remarks will have read his letter in today's issue of the Daily Telegraph.
Sir Henry Wells recognises, as he has made clear publicly on many occasions, that both the issues of the amount of this exemption and the date from which it operates are matters for the Government to decide. He has given the Government advice on the administrative problems with which the Land Commission would be faced and his advice is that if it was necessary for the Commission to apply the change retrospectively to 1967, this would raise difficulties but these would not prove insuperable. There are, of course, few administrative problems which are literally insuperable, given the necessary resources and staff.
But this is only part of the administrative problem. One of the necessary aspects of the proposal is the bringing of proceeds of disposals not exceeding £1,500 into full liability to capital gains tax. This is justified not only to meet the dangers of avoidance, but also because it would be wrong in principle to exempt these transactions from capital gains tax when other transactions at £1,500 or less are subject to that tax.
If, therefore, the change in betterment levy were to be back-dated to 1967, the liability to capital gains tax would have to be made retrospective to the same date. Admittedly, about half of the cases which have been liable to betterment levy at £1,500 market value or less will fall within a group which are exempt from capital gains tax because they are dispositions by residential owner occupiers of their principal residence or part of it, but this would still leave a substantial number of cases where there would be a liability to capital gains tax.
Although bringing these cases into charge would ordinarily leave the taxpayer better off overall than if none of


these changes were being made, there could be some cases, not many, where there would be a higher tax liability in total. This could arise in those cases where capital gains tax, as on companies, is charged at the corporation tax rate, of 42½ per cent. This, therefore, could lead to a higher total tax liability in those cases where the amount of the capital gain and of the net development realised were the same.

5.15 p.m.

Mr. A. P. Costain: Is the right hon. Gentleman trying to persuade the House that companies which are liable to the 42½ per cent. capital gains tax have sold land for under £1,500? What have they been selling—chicken coops?

Mr. Robinson: Yes. I am trying to persuade the House that they have sold land. I said that there were, perhaps, not many such cases. However, this is only one leg of an argument which has many legs.

Mr. Costain: Chicken legs?

Mr. Robinson: This particular difficulty apart, there would be complications for the Inland Revenue in having to reopen a large number of past cases. The number which would need to be assessed would not be as high as the number which would need to be reviewed by the Land Commission, because gains tax is assessed a year in arrears while assessments to betterment levy follow some months after the chargeable act or event.
The House will be aware of the very great pressures which are placed on the staff of the Inland Revenue at present. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, when moving the Second Reading, told the House that the Chancellor of the Exchequer's proposals in the Budget were tailored, among other things, to the capacity of the taxing machine of the country. The proposal of hon. Gentlemen opposite would put a considerable additional burden on the Inland Revenue. It is, therefore, not just a question of the Land Commission looking up its back files.
Another complication would arise from the way in which the exemption would operate. I mentioned this in an earlier debate and I do not think that the hon.

Member for Orpington is fully seized of this point. In the absence of tapering provision beyond £1,500, it would be almost impossible to operate a transaction without either one getting the benefit of the exemption or being liable to pay levy at the normal rate. This would not cause trouble for the future because people would be able to arrange their affairs so as to take advantage of this new provision. Where development value was being realised, they would be able to avoid transactions of just over £1,500. In any event, the application of capital gains tax at what is usually a lower rate than the levy has the effect that gains are taxed at progressive rates.
But these arguments would not apply to the past. Sales which have occurred during the two years from April, 1967, to April, 1969, could not have been carried out with the knowledge that this change was to be made. People who sold at just above £1,500 and realised development value would, therefore, find themselves substantially worse off than if they had sold for £1,500 or for just less. They would, in the context of retrospection, have a strong and justifiable grievance which I could see no way of meeting. Anomalies would, therefore, be created for which there would be no means of providing redress.

Mr. Walter Clegg: The right hon. Gentleman implied that one would be able to choose; either to keep a transaction above or below £1,500. What about compulsory purchase? There is no element of choice there.

Mr. Robinson: There is. If the vendor decides that at £1,600 or £1,700 he would be worse off because of betterment levy, he could sell for £1,500. He is not bound to accept the district valuer's figure. There is, therefore, a complete element of choice.

Sir John Foster: The right hon. Gentlemen says that he has no way of answering the problem that arises when somebody has sold for above £1,500 but could have sold at below that figure. Does he know what the answer is?

Mr. Robinson: indicated assent.

Sir J. Foster: There can be only one answer. It is to say in the Bill that anybody can decide to accept a sale price of £1,499.

Mr. Robinson: I am not sure that I appreciate what the hon. and learned Gentleman has in mind, but it seems clear that he does not have the faintest idea of what we are talking about. I nodded in assent to assure him that I was able to answer the question. I naturally assumed that he was talking about the intervention of his hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg). We are talking about retrospection. I do not know whether the hon. and learned Gentleman is now suggesting that people who have paid levy should be put in an advantageous position compared with others.

Sir J. Foster: indicated dissent.

Mr. Robinson: I do not think that the hon. and learned Gentleman has advanced the argument one iota. As this is the Committee stage, he will have ample opportunity to develop whatever point that he has in mind.
Taken together, these administrative difficulties and the potential anomalies provide substantial arguments against making this change retrospective. Furthermore, these are arguments which apply to a large-scale general change in the application of the levy such as the £1,500 exemption but which do not apply to the small technical correction such as will be made by Clause 37 on gift cases and on which the Government have already announced that past cases can be identified and that retrospection will be applied. However, these arguments of administration are essentially secondary to the main argument, which is that of principle.
It is a long and well-established rule that general changes in taxation should not be made retrospective and should, therefore, apply only to liability to tax arising from the beginning of the current financial year. This argument applies just as much to this change in betterment levy as to any other tax change. The betterment levy is a well established and permanent part of our tax system. The Opposition have been careful not to commit themselves to the repeal of the betterment levy and, indeed, have positively pledged themselves to have a system of taxing gains made from sales of land.
There is no analogy with minor corrections of anomalies which may be made shortly after a tax has been introduced,

where past cases can be identified and where the change does not apply generally to the application of that tax. This is relevant to the point raised by the hon. Member for Crosby about extra-statutory concessions. As he knows, these are applied solely in respect of the interim period. He asked if there were any cases where people had paid and had had their money refunded. The answer is that there have been a few such cases, perhaps about 100.
Such changes, like the proposals in Clause 37, which we are not at present discussing, for dealing with gifts, can be applied back to the introduction of the tax for a short period after its introduction. The same doctrine was followed with certain minor changes in capital gains tax made not more than two years after its introduction in 1965. But these arguments do not apply to a major change in the application of a tax. The exemption for small amounts of capital gains tax which was introduced in the Finance Act of last year was not made retrospective to the introduction of capital gains tax in 1965. Nor was there any Opposition campaign for that retrospection such as hon. Gentlemen opposite have mounted for the retrospection of these betterment levy changes.
The two situations are the same. Inevitably, after any tax change there must be, to put it mildly, a feeling of disappointment for those who would have benefited if their action giving rise to liability had occurred somewhat later in time. But this is no different in the case of betterment levy than in any other tax change.
The Liberal Amendment, No. 8, in the name of the hon. Member for Orpington, seeks to secure one year's retrospection rather than two. If this proposal were accepted the administrative difficulties would be fewer, but they would not be eliminated. However, the same sort of anomalies would arise, together with what I consider would be a new sense of grievance on the part of those who sold in, say, March, 1968, and who would regard the choice of April 6th, 1968, as very arbitrary indeed. Above all, the arguments of taxation principle apply with precisely the same force to the Liberal Amendment as they do to the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Crosby.
To sum up, retrospection, which is what is called for by the Amendments, would give rise to formidable, though possibly not insuperable, administrative difficulties. It would create new anomalies and new grievances in seeking to deal with old ones. Above all, it would run counter to the long and well-established principle of not making general changes in taxation retrospective.
For all these reasons, and particularly for the last one, I ask the House to reject the Amendment.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: We have listened to a very disappointing speech; particularly disappointing, coming from a former Minister of Health. I have some interest in having good performances in the House from former Ministers of Health, and I was, therefore, very disappointed, more particularly as this disappointment reinforces the disappointment we felt at the speech of the right hon. Gentleman on 28th April.
On that occasion the right hon. Gentleman incurred a good deal of well merited criticism on two counts; first, because of the weakness of the arguments he deployed and, secondly, because of his insistence in reading to the House a prefabricated paper and failing to answer the points put to him. Undoubtedly, he has repeated both these defects in the speech to which we have just listened. One of my hon. Friends murmurs, "Rather worse than before", but I am a man of infinite charity and will not seek to make any precise evaluation of the degree of defect and disability contained in the two speeches. It is, however, a very base value at its best.
The right hon. Gentleman made three arguments, but he said that the main point on which he resists the Amendment is what he called the point of principle—the point of retrospection. It is to that point that I wish primarily to devote my argument, but I will just say this about the administrative arguments which he advanced. It was, perhaps, significant that although the Minister said more than once that this matter really turns on the point of principle, the greater part of his speech was devoted to a desperate effort to dredge the barrel and try to produce administrative argument's which might give some colour of

persuasiveness and respectability to the case he seeks to put forward. Of course, they did not.
The right hon. Gentleman said, "Well, the cost will be £2¼ million." He was asked: "Is that a gross figure, or net after taking account of the capital gains set off?" He replied, "No. It is true that I have given the gross figure; I take that into account, but, of course, half of this would not be liable to capital gains." He was asked, "Is your half a numerical or a financial moiety?" He had to confess that it was only a numerical moiety—

Mr. K. Robinson: Perhaps I can help the right hon. and learned Gentleman by telling him that we reckoned that about £¾ million might be recovered by capital gains tax, so that would reduce the £2¼ million to £1½ million cost to the Exchequer.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: The right hon. Gentleman has done some very quick research and arithmetic. If he knows now, why did he not know then? I am always sceptical of these figures. It would have been more convincing if they had been produced earlier—

Mr. K. Robinson: Why?

Sir D. Walker-Smith: Out of courtesy to the Committee.

Mr. K. Robinson: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is not talking about courtesy but about conviction, which is a very different matter.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: I have found from some experience of the matter that the two quite often go together. The right hon. Gentleman was lacking in conviction, we know, but I hoped that he would not be lacking in courtesy as well. Be that as it may, there is a substantial diminution of the figure of £2¼ million which he earlier gave to the House. He did not intend to supplement it or explain it, but relied on a figure which did not take account of any offset from the capital gains position.
The Minister refers to administrative difficulties. He has been put in a considerable difficulty by the conscientious chairman of the Land Commission who has given a very proper opinion. All the chairman says is that there would be


difficulties, but they would not be insuperable. "Ah", says the Minister, "it is really very unusual to have an insuperable difficulty." Equally, it would be very unusual for any bureaucrat, even a temporary bureaucrat like Sir Henry, whom some of us knew and respected in earlier days, to say that there were no administrative difficulties at all in any course. Of course, there would be some difficulty, but administrative difficulties are made to be overcome in the interests of justice and equity. That is one of the reasons for the House of Commons being here. The right hon. Gentleman cannot say that because there might be some additional administrative inconvenience, albeit not alleged to be insuperable, that is a convincing argument in this case.
The Minister then said that in some cases it might result in a greater liability. That statement puzzled most of us until he explained that it would be in the case of those companies dealing in these tiny plots of land. It is true that 42½ per cent. as corporation tax is greater than 40 per cent. in levy—that much we would admit—albeit, as the Minister can increase the rate of betterment levy merely by Statutory Instrument, even that argument might not last for very long.
But his argument was that there might be cases involving companies. We are talking here about hardship—about, in the main, inequity suffered by humble citizens—and the sort of argument we get is that if a company were involved and had corporation tax at 42½ per cent. it would not be a good bargain to exchange that for betterment levy at 40 per cent. If that is the best the Minister can do in his arguments on administrative difficulty and anomaly, I am not surprised that he puts his main argument, or seeks to put it, on the point of principle.
I say nothing about the anomalies. I do not want to pre-empt the excellent arguments that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) is bursting to give to the Committee with all that analytical power for which he is justly famed. I will deal with the question of principle.
The Minister has argued the point of the principle of retrospection. There is no lack of lawyer Members in the

House—there are quite a number of eminent lawyers sitting on the benches—but I should comment on the absence on this occasion of the Law Officers. Where are they? Why are they not coming to give the Committee the benefit of their light and learning on these difficult legal and constitutional questions of retrospection?
The principle of retrospection is of vital importance to the Committee, and we have argued it many times. Those of us who have spoken against the principle of retrospection in legislation, as my hon. and learned Friend and I have on more than one occasion, have been concerned with not having retrospective legislation as a result of which the citizen or taxpayer who has made his arrangements in reliance on the law as then existing would be penalised by a retrospective adjustment.
We are now in a different position from that which existed when this matter was discussed on 28th April, when much of the argument turned on the question of whether it was proper or possible to make retrospective a Section 63 Order. That argument has no relevance here today, because we are concerned with legislation; with whether it is proper and in accordance with principle to introduce a retrospective element into the Finance Bill so as to extend the area of exemptions.
[Mr. ARTHUR PROBERT in the Chair]
5.30 p.m.
The question therefore arises: what inhibitions, if any, exist to restrict retrospection by Statute? The answer is that legally and constitutionally there are none. There could not be, because that would involve a fetter on the sovereignty of Parliament in its law-making capacity. Some confusion may exist. It evidently exists in the mind of the Minister for Planning and Land. That is perhaps excusable in the absence of any assistance he has had from the Law Officers.
The so-called presumption against retrospection is in fact a rule of construction. It means, in effect, that there is a presumption against interpreting a Statute retrospectively unless the retrospective effect is clearly expressed. That appears quite clearly from Maxwell on


the Interpretation of Statutes, Eleventh Edition, page 204:
It is a fundamental rule of English law that no Statute shall be construed to have a retrospective operation unless such a construction appears very clearly in the terms of the Act or arises by necessary and distinct implication …
That does not and cannot mean that Parliament has not the right to legislate retrospectively. Indeed, Maxwell goes on to say this:
But if the language is plainly retrospective it must be so interpreted.
So the first matter is that the so-called presumption against retrospection is a rule of interpretation only and not a fetter on Parliament's jurisdiction. The second matter is that there has grown up a constitutional principle against making retrospective legislation, but only when such legislation would operate to the prejudice of accrued rights in a citizen. That again I think emerges from Maxwell, page 206:
It is chiefly where the enactment would prejudicially affect vested rights or the legality of past transactions or impair contracts that the rule in question prevails. Every Statute it has been said which takes away or impairs vested rights acquired under existing laws or creates a new obligation or imposes a new duty or attaches a new disability in respect of transactions or considerations already past must be presumed out of respect for the legislature to be intended not to have a retrospective operation.
Even this principle is not binding on Parliament. It could not be, for the same reason. But it is constitutional practice not to have retrospective legislation where it will cause hardship to the citizen. That clearly has nothing to do with this matter today, because legislation here will benefit the citizen.
On to these principles a third principle has been grafted or sought to have been grafted by the Executive—not actually a principle, but merely a proposition based on administrative convenience. It is what the right hon. Gentleman has said this afternoon, that changes in taxation should not be made retrospective and should apply only to liability to tax arising from the beginning of the current financial year.
I have three comments on this. First, that it is proposition which clearly is not binding in any legal or constitutional sense and cannot be so. Secondly, the proposition, even as enunciated by the

right hon. Gentleman, is clearly confined to what is properly called taxation. Thirdly, and equally clearly, it does not come within the basic reasons for the principle against retrospection—that is, the desire not to prejudice the lawfully accrued rights of the citizen.
I noticed that the right hon. Gentleman said categorically this afternoon that betterment levy is in the realm of taxation, but the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot), who was Financial Secretary at the time of the Bill's passage through Parliament, when the right hon. Gentleman the Minister was concerned with other matters, told us precisely the opposite on 28th April:
I agree that betterment levy is not a tax—that has been made clear throughout. But occasionally Homer nods and it is wrongly referred to as a tax.
Homer not merely nodded. It is a positive nightmare. Cannot we have the benefit of the presence of the Attorney-General to arbitrate between the Minister for Planning and Land and his hon. and learned Friend, whom we all respect so much for his legal acumen as well as for his administrative abilities and his conduct of the Bill through Parliament? The views of the Minister and of the hon. and learned Gentleman are diametrically opposed.

Mr. Oscar Murton: In that same debate the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), who introduced the Bill, said:
I emphasised, speaking for the Government, that this was not taxation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April, 1969; Vol. 782, c. 1040–47.]

Sir D. Walker-Smith: The right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), whilst not a right hon. and learned Member in the technical sense of the word, is in the position of the medieval judges, who said, "We know what the law is, because we made it." Here, even on a counting of heads, it is now two to one on the other side. So the Minister should send for the Attorney-General, or perhaps resign—that might be more appropriate—and take his colleagues with him.
Even if it were a matter of taxation—I submit to the Committee, on the evidence we have, that it was not intended so to be and this proposition, again, is simply


an argument which has been dredged up to bolster and seek to justify the Government's obstinacy—I would still submit to the Committee that the Minister's proposition is not supported on any point of principle. It is one of naked administration, and Parliament should not be disposed to let the administrative convenience of the Executive, especially in a case such as this, where it is admitted that there is no insuperable administrative difficulty, override the basic principles of justice to the citizen. Parliament would betray its historic rôle if it did so.
I submit, first, that there is nothing to stop Parliament from legislating retrospectively in this case if principle dictates the propriety of its so doing. I submit, secondly, that principle does so dictate in the circumstances of this case. After all, the question is a simple one: should there be one law and one principle governing this exempted category of otherwise chargeable events, or should there be two categories arbitrarily divided at 6th April, 1969? If it is to be on the second of those bases, on what principle is the division to be made? What logical, equitable or philosophic principle could justify a division of the cases arising after 6th April, 1969 from those before? The case for treating them as one is clear. Betterment levy is charged on the development value accruing from chargeable events. These are defined in Section 27(3) of the Act. By reference to what? By reference to the first appointed day, by reference to the date 6th April, 1967, set out in the Amendment.
There is, therefore, a clear consistency and logic in defining the liabilities and exemptions alike by reference to that date, and the onus must be on the Government to show cause why it should be otherwise. That is an onus which they could discharge only if they could show an inherent difference between the nature of the chargeable events before and after 6th April, 1969. In fact, there is no inherent difference, and there could not be one. The difference arises not in the nature of the chargeable events but merely in the Government's degree of awareness of the facts and implications. The test is whether the Government would have legislated for exemption in the Bill given the advantage of knowing then what they have now found out. The answer to that is patently, "Yes"; and, if that is the answer, equally

clearly the Government should not penalise people for its own lack of foresight.
Cases where retrospection should apply in Statutes are certainly and properly rare, but there is no exclusion in a proper case. There is no exclusion in principle, as the right hon. Gentleman would have us believe. There is no exclusion where, so far from prejudicing the rights of the citizen, retrospection will operate for his benefit. This is such a case, and one in which, happily, the period of retrospection is short.
Therefore, retrospection should be applied here in spite of the argument to the contrary, which is based primarily on no better reason than the administrative convenience of the Executive. Principle supports the Amendment. Justice demands it. And I ask that it be made.

Mr. Charles Mapp: I have listened to the whole debate and enjoyed the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith). Both sides of the Chamber always appreciate a contribution from him, and on this occasion it was humorous as well, which made it that much more enjoyable.
I am not a lawyer. I was taught many years ago that, like a finger that is caught between the shafts of a pair of scissors, it is the fellow who is caught between the shafts of the legal scissors that gets hurt. Therefore, I am not anxious to line myself up with too much legal argument, but I do line myself up with the general tone of the Amendments. If my right hon. Friend resists the Amendments, as he probably will, I want him to look at the whole question again and at an appropriate stage introduce new proposals dealing with the manifest hardships that the Act has brought about.
I should first like to raise one question on whether retrospection is right or wrong. When both sides of the House, including the Minister responsible, were preoccupied with the complexities of the Act two or three years ago, as far as I know not a single Member raised the point that we are now dealing with of whether or not there should be a lower ceiling, and whether it should be confined to owner-occupiers if there was a lower ceiling.

Mr. Peter Walker: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. The Opposition moved


an Amendment in Committee to this effect.

Mr. Mapp: I accept the correction, but I did not then notice it. I suppose that it was my duty to notice it. At any rate, in the country generally and among those who feel they had some knowledge of the matter this point slipped through without being the subject of real discussion.
I believe that it was an omission by the Government not to make provision at the lower end of the scale for exemption. I do not share all the indignation of hon. Members opposite, because that concerns a far wider range of exemption than I want. Hon. Members opposite want a vast area exempted, but I am indignant purely about the situation of the small owner-occupier who has been caught in this machinery. It was never intended that he should be caught, and therefore it is a mistake that he has been caught. Accordingly, and as the legislation is so recent and the amount involved so small, there should be a measure of retrospection.
5.45 p.m.
I listened with great care to what my right hon. Friend said about his administrative difficulties. Amendment 16 in effect says what I have been thinking for the past fortnight or so on this subject. I am not too concerned about capital gains tax. People who are caught by that are people with wealth and I am not specially interested in them. But in the sensitive area of real hardship with which we are concerned I can see no reason why a cheque for the same amount as was paid by a person in the limited category of owner-occupiers that I would exempt could not be sent to him, and he would then include it in his income tax for the year in which the cheque was received.
I am totally unconvinced by my right hon. Friend's argument about the complexity of administrative difficulties. If a Minister really intends to run his Department he can balance the pros and cons and insist on getting over administrative difficulties. We are concerned with a case that warrants such action.
The principle of the first Amendment, giving retrospection to the commencement of the Act, is one that we should accept to

correct both a political mistake and a mistake in the legislation in including this category in the first place.
The Minister has not told us how the figure of £1,500—

The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Arthur Probert): Order. The hon. Gentleman now seems to be dealing with Amendment No. 9, and we are not yet discussing that Amendment. We are on the principle of retrospection, not amounts.

Mr. Mapp: I am sorry, Mr. Probert, that I have stepped out of order. I merely intended to question how the figure had been arrived at, and to say how the appropriate amount could carry in different regions. The sum of £1,500 can buy substantially less land in the capital city than in other parts of the country.
I have lived long enough and had enough experience to know that one should never make law on an individual case, but having heard the Minister's argument I cannot dismiss from my mind the case that I now want to tell the Committee about. Two or three months ago I spoke to the senior sixth form at a school and subsequently I had a letter from a teacher at the school, who told me:
We bought a plot of land in April, 1967, specifically on which to build our own home.
He then said from whom he bought the land and added:
… we did not receive the deeds until August. We paid £400 … Because of the time factor and our financial circumstances … we could not possibly have built that summer … I spent many evenings and weekends, however, measuring into piles 80 tons of second-hand stone ready for the building.
The building society would not make any initial grant in respect of that sort of "do-it-yourself" work. He goes on to say that he had to borrow money in order to arrange the first part of the building operations. Finally, he tells me that he is a schoolteacher—
… we now have a net income"—
this is since his marriage—
of £73 per month, although this may be a little more when our first child is born this month.
That man is now asked to pay £40 purely because he had had his eye, when a single man, on a small piece of land in an area near Oldham and he did as we all like to do, that is, arrange that


his home should be where he wanted it. It was never the intention of the House that people of that kind should be treated in this way. In every constituency throughout the land, one finds such people in greater or lesser numbers.

Mr. Niall McDermot: I am trying to follow my hon. Friend's argument. What I cannot follow at the moment is why there is any liability to levy. Was not this man an owner-occupier?

Mr. Mapp: The premises have been occupied as a new bungalow by the teacher and his family. The land was bought for £400, and it is now valued for betterment levy purposes at £500.

Mr. MacDermot: Why?

Mr. Mapp: One may ask, "Why?" My constituent has asked me that. I have told him what I imagine other hon. Members would probably tell him—"Be awkward about it. Do not pay. Ask for a second valuation, and fight it." The fighting of it, of course, will be done at the expense of the taxpayer because it is properly chargeable under the Act.

Mr. MacDermot: I am not questioning the amount. I am questioning the liability. What were the circumstances which gave rise to any liability to levy at all?

Mr. Mapp: The land was contiguous to, but not necessarily spoiled by, an industrial building. The individual had a certain attachment to the area. That is not unusual. We all have attachments to one area or another. He bought this piece of land. After some effort on his own part, he had his bungalow built. He is now asked to pay £40. I tell the Committee frankly that, on my suggestion, he is not likely to pay for quite a long time. All that is offered him is that he need not pay any interest for the time being.
I put it bluntly to the Minister that, with all the political mistakes we are making, this is another one. I find no comfort in saying that sort of thing. I have said it in correspondence to my right hon. Friend, and I say it here now. In my view, there is an area here within the compass of these Amendments in which something should be done. Whether the Amendments are lost or not I am not much concerned. But I

beg my Government and this Minister, who has always been known on this side to be humane, and, I believe, in many respects, is so accepted by hon. Members opposite, to recognise that there was not in this piece of legislation any venom ever intended either by Government or Opposition Members in wishing to catch small fry of this kind.

Mr. John Hall: I think that the hon. Gentleman is wrong in saying that there was never any intention to catch small fry of this kind. In all the correspondence which I have had with the Minister personally, it has been made quite clear that it was the intention of the Act so to catch transactions of that kind.

Mr. Mapp: I accept the hon. Gentleman's correction. We cannot each, on every occasion, follow all the details of the business of the House on every Bill. But I suppose that each one of us is alerted, as I am, by problems which are put to us. I am alerted here to the injustices which are created. They are injustices, and they were never intended by either side of the House. They should be corrected by the Minister at the proper stage in such a way as to deal with the limited problem of the hardships suffered by owner-occupiers.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale: The case for retrospection here has been ably set out by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith). It is of the utmost importance that retrospection in this case would be of benefit to the taxpayer. There having been no fault save by the State itself, everything should be done to help.
I am particularly concerned because I have had put to me many cases of hardship, most of them suffered by retired people, of whom there are many in my constituency, who have been hit because they wished to sell a small piece of land in order to meet the greater expenses put upon them by the rise in the cost of living. If we bring the date back to 1967, a great number of these people will be helped.
I cite one case, which I have already raised with the Minister, of a small owner-occupier, retired, living on a fixed income of £10 a week, with three children. My constituent writes that the


family are "completely broke"; the children are ill-clad; they do not have enough fuel. He bought the piece of land 12 years ago, he developed it with his own hands, doing as much as he could, yet the Government have charged him betterment levy of £724 on a £1,800 plot. He needed the money in order to protect himself against the harsh rise in the cost of living.
If we introduce retrospection in this case, taking the date back to 1967, the result will be of benefit to the taxpayer, and people of that kind will be covered. I have four other cases which I could put to the Committee, giving details of exactly the same sort. I am sure that the Government never intended to act harshly on such people. Yet it is happening. The Act has proved harsh, unjust and inhuman. Speaking from the human side, not the legalistic side, I beg the Minister to think again. If he does, he will bring great benefit to many people who at present are being harshly and unjustly treated.
I reinforce the plea made by my right hon. and learned Friend. There should be a Law Officer of the Crown here to explain the legal case and answer the clear and forceful points which have been put to the Government about the principle of retrospection where it is of benefit to the citizen.

Mr. Frederick Wiley: As I find myself again in rather unusual company, perhaps I should explain at the outset that I am speaking for myself. I believe that I was the only Member taking part in the Budget debate who said that this provision should be made retrospective. I mention that because it was my immediate reaction to the generous provision which my right hon. Friend has made.
I accept all that the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) said, speaking as a lawyer, about retrospection, but I think that we are mainly concerned about retrospection here as politicians. I have vigorously opposed retrospection in the past because, invariably, the retrospection in those cases was to the prejudice of the citizen. The situation is entirely different, however, when the retrospection can be to the advantage of the citizen.
That is why I incorporate in what I say all that the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, since, when one considers the advantage of the citizen, one has to consider the question in a wider context.
6.0 p.m.
I imagine that all hon. Members will concede that retrospection in this case would be to the advantage of the citizen. It would be hard to think of a case in which it might be to his disadvantage. Therefore, I would say that we ought to be favourably disposed towards making what is a generous provision. We should remember that this is recently-introduced legislation, and that many of the apprehensions that lawyers have about retrospection do not apply in these circumstances. In addition, this legislation has been subjected to public debate. We are considering hardship cases, but we have to remember that many have been debated here. It is clear that the Minister could have taken action to deal with those cases under the Act.
We are considering hardship cases that we have debated, which have been under consideration by my right hon. Friend for some time, with which he could have dealt, and it is not acceptable to say in the light of this experience, "Well we are obliged to those who have suffered hardship for calling attention to circumstances which we are now putting right". We must deal with those other cases, if only the cases which we have discussed here. It would be quite wrong for us to shrug our shoulders and say that because we have chosen to deal with this in the Finance Bill we are not therefore responsible for these other cases.
I share the disappointment of the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East at my right hon. Friend's reply, in that he cannot make this retrospective. When I referred briefly to this in the Budget debate I spoke tentatively because I had not then heard the opinion of Sir Henry Wells. It is all very well to say that this ought to be retrospective, but if there had been real administrative difficulties, if Sir Henry had called our attention to them we would have had to reconsider this. As has been emphasised, Sir Henry has made it quite clear that the Land Commission is in a position to deal with these cases administratively. We should accept not that there are difficulties that cannot be overcome, but


that Sir Henry and the Land Commission can deal with these cases without any great difficulty.
Retrospection has been precedented already. My right hon. Friend referred to a hundred cases of retrospection. If there is precedent, there is all the more reason for following it now. There is the question of cost, although I would rather decide this on grounds of hardship and principle within the terms of the legislation. If we have to consider costs then my right hon. Friend can deal with this by increasing the levy. I know that this may not be popular with hon. Gentlemen opposite but if we are talking about equity and relieving hardship cases, it would be fair at the same time to say that if my right hon. Friend's difficulty is that there should be no overall loss of revenue, then the levy should be raised
Just as we have to accept that there are no administrative difficulties, it does not lie with my right hon. Friend to say that he cannot afford to do this. He can use the means he has already to increase the levy. There is one remaining argument, the force of which I accept, which is that there is a consequential difficulty with capital gains. I have heard my right hon. Friend, but I am not convinced that this is an insuperable difficulty. We can deal with this and I hope my right hon. Friend will look at it again. He has been obdurate before, but at the end of the day he has had to change his mind. I hope that on this occasion he will change his mind with greater alacrity.
This is largely a political question, and it distresses me, when we get a generous provision at the end of a long and prolonged debate, that we should allow that provision itself to cause resentment and bitterness because we are not fair across the board. I appeal to my right hon. Friend to look at this again and, for goodness sake, not through Treasury eyes. We know what the views of the Treasury were about this. I join with other hon. Gentlemen who expressed surprise at the persistence with which my right hon. Friend talks about this as being taxation. If this is so, it is a change in concept. This was not, as hon. Gentlemen know, the way in which the betterment levy was originally put forward. However, I do not want to cause

trouble by stirring up debates about matters which are not really germane.
I want to appeal as strongly as I can to my right hon. Friend to recognise that there are hardship cases. Adjustments must be made to see that all these cases are dealt with, not just those which arise subsequent to the passing of the Finance Bill. We must deal with all of those hardship cases, many of which we have discussed in our debates on the betterment levy.

Sir J. Foster: I have to dispose of an interest. I was chairman of a company in the division of my hon. Friend the Member for Nantwich (Mr. Grant-Ferris) which sold 27 sq. ft. for £25. I do not put this forward as a hardship case, but as a case which would come within the Amendment if it were retrospective. After this transaction the Land Commission sent four pages containing 14 or 18 questions, asking what the severance was and what the land had been previously used for. As it was a Government document I abstained from four-letter words but I did point out that the land had previously been used for cow defecation.
I tried to shame the Land Commission by writing back and saying, "Surely you do not want to use tens or hundreds of pounds finding out about these 27 sq. ft.?" It was unshamed. I then wrote a more insistent letter, but it was still unshamed. I then had an Adjournment debate about this, but unfortunately it came on at 4 o'clock in the morning and there was not much publicity. The Minister came down to the House then but never answered my point. He just said what a wonderful Commission it was.
We then paid 40 per cent. of £25, assuming that the land was worth zero, and assuming that we had a 100 per cent. gain on the sale of the land. I did think of appealing to the House of Lords about it—we could have fought it for year after year. Some questions of retrospection are concerned with quite ludicrous, absurd and lunatic things. Why the Land Commission should ask a company all these questions and waste its time when it had sold 27 sq. ft., God alone knows! In what was an envious point—in other words, it was based on one of the motives which activates the Cabinet and the Government—the Minister said that it


created an anomaly. He said that a person who sold land for the future could have arranged his affairs so that he sold it for under £1,500. He said that there would be an anomaly if the Amendment were passed because some owners could have paid betterment levy and lost money by not selling for £1,500. That is quite true, unless the right hon. Gentleman finds the answer which, I believe, can be found. When I vouchsafed an answer, the right hon. Gentleman, slightly discourteously, said that I was not seized of the point and that my answer, in effect, was nonsense. Let me try it out on him.
The way to deal with it is to say that if anybody sold for over £1,500, he can serve notice on the Commission that he would like the amount to be £1,499. Then, the amount of levy will be returned to him minus the increase in the purchase price. Let us see how that works out. Suppose that land is sold with a betterment levy of £1,600. Forty per cent. of £1,600 is £640.

Mr. K. Robinson: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I really do not think that he has understood it. The de minimis exemption applies to transactions of £1,500. He is talking about betterment levy or development value of £1,600. It is the value of the transaction.

Sir J. Foster: I need only amend my figures. Let us assume that the land was sold for £2,000 and the betterment levy was £X. If the betterment levy is more than the excess of the purchase price, the person concerned gets it back. It is a very simple formula. I cannot understand why the Minister does not understand it. He shakes his head. I imagine that he still has not understood it.
The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that in the case of any excess over a transaction of £1,500, the man concerned would feel that there had been an anomaly because had he known that there would be an exemption for transactions up to £1,500, he would have fixed the transaction at £1,499. The right hon. Gentleman said that that was how people henceforward would not be caught because they would so arrange their affairs. People who would lose by having a transaction over £1,500 would reduce the figure to £1,499.
All that I propose is that if the Amendment were carried and a further Amendment were made, the vendor should decide that the price should be £1,499 and an adjustment should be made for the excess purchase price. The person in question would not do it if he lost money by crediting a greater purchase price but he would do it if the excess of the purchase price was less than the development levy. It is as simple as that.
It is wrong for the right hon. Gentleman to assume that somebody else has not put forward an answer in good faith and one that might work. He should examine it instead of jumping up and saying that one is talking nonsense when one obviously is not. I see the right hon. Gentleman's lips moving but I cannot lip-read. If he were to talk to his advisers and come to the conclusion that this formula would work, if he understood it—as, I think, his advisers do—I hope that he would have the courtesy to say, "I am sorry, I did not understand what the hon. and learned Gentleman was saying, but he has explained at length and I now see that it would work in theory, but I do not like it in practice".
The right hon. Gentleman advanced two arguments against retrospection. One was the envy point. How can it hurt a man who does not recover because somebody else does recover? The other argument was that anomalies would be created. It is not difficult to overcome this objection. For those reasons, I hope that the Committee will agree to the Amendment.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. MacDermot: As one of those who did not understand the hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) at the time of his earlier intervention, but who understands it now, I am grateful to him for his lengthier intervention and for making the point clear. I will refer to it later in my argument.
I am one of those who, in the recent debate on the subject, urged the Minister to look closely at the question of retrospection because I thought that there was a good deal to be said in favour of the suggestion of retrospection. Having heard my right hon. Friend the Minister and having thought more about it, I


think that he is right. I should like briefly to say why I have come to that conclusion.
First, may we clear away the legal argument. I do not think that there is any dispute between the lawyer Members of the House about the propriety from a legal point of view in legislating retrospectively. I also agree entirely with all that the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) said on this subject. There is from a legal point of view a general dislike of retrospective legislation but there are exceptions to that.
It is a subject which I had to go into with care at the time when I had to answer for the Government on the War Damage (No. 2) Bill, which we inherited from the previous Conservative Administration and which concerned acutely the principles of retrospective legislation. One of the exceptions—it applies principally in the taxing field—is that where retrospective legislation would be for the benefit of the subject, there is nothing improper in legislating retrospectively.
That, however, is not the end of the argument. Another and much wider principle—I agree with my right hon. Friend that it is a political and not a legal matter—is that, in general, legislation should not be made retrospective for a quite different reason. It is desirable to have certainty in the law and when Parliament, after due consideration, has passed a law, that law should, stand unless and until it is repealed. Unless there are overpowering reasons for saying, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman said in his peroration, that justice demands that it be made retrospective, the starting point must be a prejudice against retrospective legislation simply so that citizens will know where they stand in the arrangement of their affairs. [Interruption.] I hope that hon. Members will do me the courtesy of listening to the argument.
The Minister, in basing his case on that principle, illustrated it by saying—

Sir Frederick Bennett: He must be after "Sunny Jim's" job.

Mr. MacDermot: The hon. Member for Torquay (Sir F. Bennett) is notorious for interrupting other people's speeches. I hope that he will listen. The Minister

supported his argument by pointing out that anomalies could arise if this legislation were made retrospective. He gave an example, to which the hon. and learned Member for Northwich has given an ingenious reply by way of a suggested solution of the person who had sold for just over £1,500 and who might feel that he was unjustly done by because he could have sold for a lesser amount and made a greater net benefit. I agree with the hon. and learned Member that one could think out ingenious ways by which there could be an adjustment as between the individual in question and the Land Commission.
That, however, does not get to the root of the problem. The point is that as a result of the legislation which we passed, we stated that certain consequences would flow from certain acts—for example, that if a person built on a particular piece of land he might make himself liable to betterment levy; if he disposed of a piece of land, he might make himself liable to a certain amount of betterment levy.
We have been hearing a great deal about those who were not properly advised about their rights and their liabilities. What we have not heard about, and surely they are the majority, are the people who were properly advised and knew. Many of those people will have said to themselves, "If this is to be the consequence, if I am to be liable for the levy, I will not sell. I will keep my piece of land or I will not develop it." If we now make all this legislation retrospective, they will feel a sense of injustice.

Several Hon. Members: indicated dissent.

Mr. MacDermot: Hon. Members shake their heads, but they will. They will feel that if they had known that Parliament was to repeal this legislation, they would have acted differently.

Mr. Daniel Awdry: Surely the answer to that argument is that they may sell now.

Mr. MacDermot: They may or may not be able to sell now, but the point is that they took that decision which may have been important to them at that time. They may forgo benefits which they would otherwise have received


because they thought that the liability which they would incur would make it not worth their while to sell. They would feel, "This Parliament cannot make up its mind; it is constantly changing its mind". [Laughter.] Hon. Members cannot get away from that.
The subject regards it as legislation which Parliament has passed, and it is because people's decisions in their daily lives will be affected by what is the law in force at a particular time that we must think carefully before we pass sweeping measures, and this is a sweeping general measure, of retrospective legislation which will vitiate and alter the effect of many completed transactions of which we cannot know all the details and of which we cannot see all the effects.
This is very different from dealing with a narrowly defined range where one knows that all the transactions have gone one way and have produced a certain given effect which is against the citizen, so that one must say, "We do not mind retrospective legislation in this respect, because it must be and will be purely to the benefit of the taxpayer" as in the example of retrospective taxation legislation.
What we are dealing with here, and this is the essence of the Minister's argument, is a general provision, not a specific provision aimed at dealing with specific cases of hardship such as one is familiar with in retrospective taxation legislation. I made the point in our previous debate that what the Government have done is to go far further than they were asked. Instead of producing a series of little measures to deal with particular established hardships, they have said, "We will take a broad sweep and for the future we will wipe out the liability to levy in 50 per cent. of the cases". Because of the wide nature of that provision, it would not be right to make that retrospective.

Mr. Stephen Hastings: The hon. and learned Gentleman seems to be making a false comparison. He is comparing the case of someone who has lost money, cash, from paying betterment levy with that of someone who has simply lost an option to sell which he may now exercise if the legislation is made retrospective.

Mr. MacDermot: The hon. Gentleman is taking too commercial a view of the matter. [Laughter.] I know that hon. Members opposite always think of everything in commercial terms, but there are other factors which enter into these matters. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hardship."] Let us come on to hardship.
The whole of the case for retrospection is on the basis that it is legislation in order to cure hardship which has been established. If that were true and that were the essence of the provision, I should agree with hon. Members opposite, but it is simply not true and it has not been established, and that is why I attack the argument succinctly and clearly put by the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he ended his speech by saying, "Justice demands it".
We hear much about hardship cases, and it is conceded that there have been some individual cases which one could describe as hardship cases, but I confidently assert that the great majority of the cases which will be left out in future as a result of this wide and sweeping concession are not hardship cases in the slightest.
If a well-to-do person who has a large garden sells off an acre or two for development of that garden and makes a substantial profit, as can frequently happen, if he has to pay betterment levy he does not suffer any hardship. In future, he will not have to pay it if it is within the £1,500 limit as established in the concession. But there are two reasons for the concession which the Government have made. One is that in a narrow percentage of cases covered by the change hardship will be prevented. The other is that, looking at the broad structure of the administrative work entailed in collecting this money and the amount of annoyance caused to people who have to pay it, the Government have decided that it is not worth going on trying in future to collect the levy in this broad class of cases, and so they have made this sweeping move and taken out of liability 50 per cent. of the cases which account for only 10 per cent. of the money.
I do not know whether the Minister is able to make an estimate of how many in this 50 per cent. he or the Commission would regard as in any true sense


hardship cases, but I suspect that it would be very few. The main class of hardship cases about which we hear when analysed is shown those where people were not advised of what would be their liability to levy if they completed the transaction. One hears in many of these cases that they were advised by solicitors and that the solicitors did not advise them what their liability to levy was. All I can suggest to such people is that they should consider going to another solicitor to take advice as to whether they have an action for negligence against the solicitor who failed to advise them properly.

Mr. Peter Walker: I understand the logic of the hon. and learned Gentleman's case—that the reason is administrative and that—

Mr. MacDermot: But the hon. Gentleman has not understood my case. I have not mentioned the administrative arguments in the whole of my speech. I am not putting my case on the administrative argument; nor, as I understand, is the Minister.

Mr. Peter Walker: The hon. and learned Gentleman is arguing that hardship is of minor relevance and that there has been a wide concession to overcome the administrative problem. I will not quote the whole of it, but if the hon. and learned Gentleman examines the Minister's winding-up speech in the last debate he will find that the right hon. Gentleman made it perfectly clear that he came to the conclusion that this change should be made after a study of all the hardship cases concerned. Therefore, the Minister's conclusion is based on hardship. Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman agree?

Mr. MacDermot: I invite the hon. Gentleman himself to study the Minister's speech and to have listened to the passage in the Minister's speech which the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) quoted when the Minister made it perfectly clear that he was not conceding that there was hardship in the majority of these cases. He agreed that there were some cases of hardship and he made the very point which I am now making—that when these cases are analysed, it is seen that the probable source of hardship when the hardship was genuine resulted

from wrong advice or lack of proper advice to the person who entered the transaction which rendered him liable to the levy.

Mr. Peter Walker: As the hon. and learned Gentleman has challenged me, may I quote the Minister's words? Referring to the previous debate, he said:
The House will recall that on that occasion I invited hon. Members to let me know of cases which they received from constituents where the incidence of betterment levy was operating with undue severity.
Having said that he had studied those cases, he went on to say:
I have considered this problem intensively, and the White Paper 'Modifications in Betterment Levy', published on 15th April, is the result of that consideration."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April, 1969; Vol. 782, c. 1077.]

Mr. MacDermot: That does not in the slightest contradict what I have said. The hon. Member for Crosby cited the very passage from the Minister's speech making the point which I am now making.

Mr. James Dance: The hon. and learned Gentleman is advocating that people should take more and more legal advice. If I am fortunate enough to catch the eye of the Chair later, I shall quote the instance of a constituent of mine who was not allowed to charge legal expenses against the levy. It is most unfair of the hon. and learned Gentleman to advise my constituent to take more legal advice and to incur more expense when he is not allowed to deduct those expenses from the levy on the price obtained for the land.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. R. T. Paget: Of course he is not.

Mr. MacDermot: I agree with the intervention of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). Of course he is not.
I suggest that the basic case for making it retrospective has not been established, namely, to show that the Amendment falls within the class of cases which are proper for retrospective legislation. It goes far wider than the mere relief of particular hardship cases.
The Minister does not rely on the administrative argument as the primary argument. But the House should not


sweep it aside as lightly as it has sought to do. It is administratively possible for the Land Commission to repay the amount, but Sir Henry Wells is concerned only with that aspect. That is not the end of it. The House accepts that, if it were made retrospective, it would be necessary to make retrospective the provision that these transactions, except where otherwise exempted, should be left to the capital gains tax. That would happen in something like half the cases.
What will be the reaction of people who have had to pay betterment levy on relatively small sums if they are now to be told that Parliament has passed retrospective legislation to abolish that liability? They will breathe a sigh of relief and think that they are exempt. But later they will find that the Inland Revenue will assess them to capital gains tax. They will then have to start again on a quite different set of arguments, with a different base value, they will need to seek fresh professional advice and, in the end, they will find that they will have to pay a similar sum or a slightly smaller sum.
This will create an enormous amount of administrative work. It will mean administrative work not only for the civil servants involved, but administrative work by the taxpayer in having to take professional advice about his liability. The hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), in trying to push aside the Minister's anomaly, tried to make out that the amount of levy in any individual case was only a few pounds. But it may sometimes be a few hundred pounds. The administrative procedures involved are not just the simple action of getting a repayment. In half the cases there will be administrative trouble for all concerned in finding out the amount of the alternative liability.
The Conservative Party has attacked the betterment levy. Hon. Members opposite have constantly pointed out that in the early stages of the levy the costs of collection are heavy in proportion to the amount collected. If this provision were made retrospective, the result would be that in 50 per cent. of the cases to date there would be a net collection of about £750,000 capital gains tax in relation

to the levy. The administrative work involved in repayment and the work of assessing liability to capital gains tax would produce a figure of £750,000. There is certainly something in the administrative argument.
I would not rest the case on that basis if I were satisfied that all the Amendment did was to put right established cases of hardship. The Amendment goes far beyond that. The general principle should prevail that our legislation should not be made retrospective.

Mr. James Allason: A bad mistake has been made by the Government at the expense of humble citizens. This is not a case of rich land speculators claiming that they have been hit by the Land Commission. We warned the Government at the time that the people who were going to be hurt were the humble citizens carrying out small transactions. But the Government refused to listen. It is no good their saying that they did not have advance warning that this would happen; they have not the excuse that they were not warned. Having had the warning, they have made the mistake, and they must now put right the damage that has been done.
The Press has done an excellent job in exposing the evils of the levy on small transactions. The Minister has been bombarded from both sides of the House with the evil cases which have occurred. He remains quite unmoved about the past. He seems only to be concerned with further discomfort to citizens in the future.
Those who have already been caught by the charge may not yet have paid it. There is no obligation upon the Land Commission to collect the levy until six years after the event. For many people the levy may lie in the future. It would be intolerable if, four years from now, the Commission came along and tried to collect levy on the basis of a charge recognised to be objectionable.

Mr. Hastings: We will abolish it.

Mr. Allason: We will abolish it, but we shall have to put the matter right. I am concerned about what will happen during the rest of the time that the present Government remain in office.
The Minister gave four reasons for not making the provision retrospective. First,


he said that it would cost £2¼ million, plus £1½ million in regard to the consequential effects flowing from Clause 37. Is this a reason not to right injustice? If 90 per cent. of the levy has been collected, and 10 per cent. has been unreasonably collected, is that a reason for not refunding any sums of money? The fact that the money cannot be spared is a totally inadequate reason.
The Minister then gave the further reason that only 10,000 cases were involved. Are 10,000 cases of injustice too small for the Government to worry about? That surely is a ridiculous attitude. We were then given the example of hardship to those who entered into transactions just above the £1,500. How unfair that would be. We have heard from both sides of the House how this situation could be dealt with. But even if it could not be dealt with, is that a reason for not giving justice to people concerned with transactions under the £1,500 mark? It is the good, old Socialist doctrine of equal misery for all.
Finally, there was the difficulty about the capital gains tax. I suggest that those who have suffered from having been pursued by this ridiculous levy on small transactions have already had enough worry. It would be possible for the Inland Revenue to forget about these cases. This is the most sensible method, since the capital gains tax problem would arise in only 5,000 cases.
Justice demands that these Amendments must be made. It is intolerable that Parliament should condone an indefensible injustice.

[Mr. HARRY GOURLAY in the Chair]

Mr. John Lee (Reading): If we were discussing an Amendment relating to a capital levy instead of a betterment levy, I suspect that the volume of indignation from hon. Gentlemen opposite would be much greater than it has been so far, but it would be a good deal less justified, and my right hon. Friend would be in a much easier position to reply than he is at the moment. It seems strange that the Minister's reply should have been so largely concerned with the technical and somewhat abstruse arguments of the merits and demerits of retrospective legislation.

Mr. John Nott: Would the hon. Gentleman explain the subtle distinction between a betterment levy and a capital levy in this instance? It seems to me that they are precisely the same.

Mr. Lee: If the hon. Gentleman does not know that, he ought not to be taking part in the debate.
I was concerned with this particular Clause. I prefer the good old robust radical phrase "soaking the rich". I am sure that the hon. Gentleman understands that, because he and his hon. Friends have been fighting against the possibility of a Labour Government doing just that for some considerable time. Unfortunately, their fears have largely proved groundless. I do not want to quarrel with the hon. Member for St. Ives (Mr. Nott), unless he wants to quarrel with me, because in this instance I find myself in a large measure of agreement with him and his hon. Friends on this matter.
I share the anxieties that have been expressed about the way that this levy is operating. One hears far too many cases of people writing to one's constituency neighbours raising questions and showing quite understandable incomprehensible exasperation with the operation of the law which is, to say the least, complicated for lawyers to understand, but is baffling in the extreme for those not so qualified.
One of the many unfortunate consequences of the delay in introducing a low level of exemption, or any level of exemption, is that we shall lose a great deal of the political kudos that would otherwise accrue for the idea of making something which approximates to a capital levy, though not as much as the hon. Member for St. Ives would have us believe. It would not be the first time that the Government, even when they do something approaching the radical, have managed to muff it in such a way that they do not get the benefit of the credit for having done it.
While we are criticising my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it is only right to give him due credit for at least having shown, a little belatedly, some sensitiveness on this point and having introduced this provision. I should have been prepared to see a higher level of exemption—no doubt hon. Gentlemen opposite would like a very high level of exemption—but it would


be countered in return by a higher levy up the scale if we are to have this tax in the way that it is constituted in the Bill.
Having settled at the level of £1,500, I cannot see how anyone can argue that if it is right to exempt people henceforth from the operation of these provisions because there may be anomalies or hardship, it is wrong to provide the same level and measure of relief for those who were unfortunate enough to be caught in the period between the Act becoming operative and the operation of this Budget.
I cannot see how my right hon. Friend can hide behind a constitutional argument. I do not wish to go over all the arguments put forward by the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), but there is all the difference in the world between retrospective legislation which operates or militates against the citizen and retrospective legislation which relieves him of a liability or a disability. It seems somewhat disingenuous to raise one's hands in mock horror at the concept of retrospective legislation, which is not new, though rightly regarded with suspicion whenever it is proposed and subject to a great deal of scrutiny. But to treat the two the same is not realistic.
I was not in this House when the War Damage Bill was introduced, with a provision about the Burmah Oil Company. Had I been here, I would certainly have voted against that provision. Not from any tenderness towards the Burmah Oil Company, whose shareholders had, no doubt, done very nicely from their assets, but because I believe that monkeying about with a judicial decision really is an outrage. It is not putting it too high to talk of it in those terms.
There have been many instances when changes made in the course of a Finance Bill have had the effect of retrospectively, albeit for a short time, reducing or abating a person's tax liability and he has been granted a refund. Those instances are just as much retrospective or retroactive operative pieces of legislation as this. It is true that the period to which it refers would be somewhat longer, though not I think unconscionably longer.
I agree with the hon. Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) that it is difficult enough when people are to be visited with a tax demand, the possibility of which they have probably forgotten all about six years hence. But if people find themselves in peril for even the most minor transactions, it strengthens the case for treating this matter with more flexibility than my right hon. Friend has so far been willing to show.
I should have thought that the object of this levy was to catch the big boys—I do not mind how hard they are hit—but I think that the Government have once again muffed the situation. The Government somehow cannot bring themselves to make a really radical frontal assault on inequality of wealth or, indeed, on any of the other inequalities that disfigure our society. They furtively probe a situation and, generally speaking, end up by getting the worst of the skirmish which takes place afterwards.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will give further consideration to this matter, which will undoubtedly be used by the Opposition as a stick with which to beat the Government if they do not do it. That is not the most important or most admirable reason for changing it. But it would not be worth the fuss and bother for my right hon. Friend to stand pat on the situation as it is. I think that he may well gain a great deal of credit if he and his right hon. Friends swallow their pride and give way on this matter.

Mr. Costain: I intervene for a few moments because I cannot resist the temptation offered by the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Lee). The purpose of the Land Commission Act was primarily to enable land to be made available, not to soak the rich, as he so often wants to do.
The argument has been put forward very clearly by my hon. Friends on this side and, indeed, by hon. Gentlemen opposite, except for the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot). I thought that he put up an extraordinarily good argument for a very bad case. It reminded me of the time when he was on the Front Bench. I used to admire then how he could put over a poor argument for a bad case. I do


not know why the hon. and learned Member has intervened at this time. I feel that the bells will be ringing in Downing Street because at last they have somebody to support the Minister.
Basically, the purpose of the Land Commission Act was to obtain land. By not accepting the Amendment the Minister is saying that those who helped the Government to obtain land by selling it to them were fools because they had to pay the tax. If the Minister does not make this provision retrospective, he will penalise those who patriotically made their land available to the nation. This is much the same as the Government have done with War Loan, and with everything else. Once they get someone to do what they want, they soak him, and if the Government do not accept the Amendment they will soak these people once again.

Mr. Paget: I intervene because I have had a constituency case about which I have been in correspondence with the Minister.
I am strongly in favour of the principle of taxing development gains. Of all forms of enrichment, they are the least defensible. I speak with some personal interest in the matter, because I think that it was my great-great grandfather who had a vanity. He liked to have the best cattle which made the highest price at Leicester Market, and so that the cattle would be fresh he bought the farm nearest to that market.
For two generations that farm has developed at an enormous profit which I am still enjoying. None the less, it is obviously utterly indefensible. We did nothing to increase the value of that land. It was increased by the public effort of the people of Leicester and their expanding city. All that we did was to impede that expansion by hanging on to the farm.

Mr. Graham Page: It was a shrewd investment.

Mr. Paget: No.

Mr. F. P. Crowder: It must have been a shrewd investment by mistake. In any event, I hope that the money will go to the Pytchley Hounds.

Mr. Paget: A shrewd investment by mistake, equivalent to backing the wrong horse and finding that it has won.
Efforts to tax these development benefits have been tried and found extremely difficult. This latest is the most promising yet, but it did at the low levels disclose cases—and too many cases—of hardship. The Minister then took the attitude, "If you show me that this is really producing many cases of hardship I shall reconsider the matter". He did reconsider it, and I am sure that we all thank him for having done so. However, having reconsidered the matter, to say, "Because I have found a number of cases of hardship I am going to amend the provision as to the future, but I shall leave all the hardship where it is" does not seem to me to be a good argument either in logic or in morals.
I am told that the Amendment cannot be accepted because there is an objection to retrospective legislation. I have argued this on previous occasions. I am an enthusiast for retrospective legislation. I would have in every Finance Bill a retrospective Clause which picked up the bright ideas which the accountants had had in the previous year and said to them, "Boys, you have been ingenious, but it is not going to work. You will have to pay the tax anyway". If that were done, an enormous amount of effort which is at present devoted to finding ways of avoiding tax would be saved, because people would not go in for that exercise if they knew that they would waste their money after they had done it. I believe that retrospective legislation is far and away the most efficient deterrent to tax avoidance, and also that it results in an enormous saving of accountants' work, so much of which is engaged on that kind of thing.
The argument that we must not penalise retrospectively cuts no ice with me.

Sir J. Foster: Would the hon. and learned Gentleman make the betterment levy retrospective to his great-great-grandfather?

Mr. Paget: I think that there could be limits. I do not want to go back three or four generations, but retrospection in the context which I have in mind would have the effect of preventing the


various tax avoidance devices which are thought up every year and which are stopped in succeeding Finance Bills. Instead of having to stop these devices every year, we would have a most effective deterrent and not have so many holes to stop.
I can see no argument against retrospection to correct admitted hardships. I see no reason why we should not alleviate hardships which are known, and which are the occasion for making the alteration. The argument against doing this does not make sense to me. It was the administrative argument which impressed me far more than any argument about ethics and morals, and that is the confusion which capital gains tax would involve. All property has increased in value a great deal since 1965, and probably much the greater part, if not all, of these betterment payments would be added value which would probably attract capital gains tax.
Let us deal with this in a rough and ready way. Let us not return the whole amount, but only two-thirds of it. Assume, on a rough and ready basis, that most of this gain is anyway liable to capital gains tax. I suggest, therefore, that we take off one-third, and return two-thirds. I wonder whether the Minister would consider a compromise on that basis? I feel that the people whose hardship occasioned this change, and who should have been excluded from this levy, will feel very bitter and have a justified sense of injustice unless something is done for them.

Mr. Oscar Murton: This is a most extraordinary debate. The right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), who, I think, has gone to refresh himself, after listening to all the arguments, pleaded with his right hon. Friend the Minister for retrospection. It was, after all, the right hon. Member for Sunderland. North who brought the Land Commission Bill before the House in the first place.
The Minister has throughout been obdurate. In defence of the line which he has adopted he has used the argument which he has used on previous occasions. We have heard nothing new today.
At the beginning of his speech, I thought that the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot)

intended to plead one way, but he cleverly turned it round and pleaded the other way. I suggest to the hon. and learned Member that his speech, too, was specious in some respects, especially when he said that anybody who fell into trouble would probably do so because he did not take legal advice.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Bromley (Mr. Hunt) is not here at the moment, but if he comes in later he will be able to tell the Committee about an appalling case, reported in the Daily Telegraph this morning, in which levy has been raised even though there is no question of any development having been allowed. The Minister talks about a matter of principle. I would say that it is a matter of un-principle. A great preponderance of these cases are cases of hardship. The country will take note of the obduracy which the Minister is showing tonight and it will not do his party's already tarnished reputation any good.

7.0 p.m.

Mr. Dance: Most of us were horrified at the intervention of the Minister earlier. He gave no hope of any relaxation of his obstinacy. I support the Amendments, because in certain circumstances retrospection is essential. It was a bad idea to set up the Land Commission in the first place. If it were catching the big fish in its net there might be some argument for it, but recent evidence proves that the only person caught is the small man who wishes to have his own home on a little plot of land. Far from discouraging him we should encourage him, so that he does not become a further liability upon the local council.
Far from the Land Commission's accepting retrospection it seems from recent pronouncements that it intends to jump the gun. The hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) said that people wanted to be clear in their minds what the future held for them. I want to read a quotation from a report that appeared in this morning's Daily Telegraph, spelling out clearly the way in which we are going wrong in this matter. The report is headed "Lunatic Levy" and it says:
You sell your house. The new owner has no intention whatever of developing the site; he just wants somewhere to live. Indeed, if he did want to develop this particular site, he could not; the council would refuse planning permission. And then along comes the


Land Commission and charges you betterment levy. You rub your eyes in amazement. The Commission explains that levy is charged wherever there is a prospect of the land being put to more valuable use. You point out that there can be no such prospect. Ah, says the Commission, but the council might change—who knows?—and planning permission might then be granted.
How clear are people's minds about what may happen in the future?
I want to refer to a case of grave hardship in my constituency about which the Minister knows. It concerns the question of the cost incurred in selling a plot of land. A widow sold the land finally for £4,750. The base value put on it, after a certain amount of argument, was £825. The widow then incurred the following expenses: £31 10s. for planning permission; £191 for advertising and commission and £70 for solicitors' charges. As far as I can see, she has also incurred further expenditure, in the form of agreeing the base value, of £32, making a total amount of £326. We have always prided ourselves on the fact that British law is just. Surely it is not just when there are hundreds who pay the levy on money which they do not receive. These costs are essential. The money does not go into the old widow's pocket. She receives an amount only after that money has been paid out.
I took this matter up with the Minister and he gave me a very unsatisfactory reply. He said:
The only provision in the Land Commission Act which permits an allowance to be made for costs is contained in paragraph 19.
The Minister then pointed out that these costs are allowable and he ended by saying:
You will have seen the recent White Paper on Modifications in Betterment Levy—Cmnd. 4001. It is proposed that in future costs incurred on the disposal of land liable to levy should be allowed in the assessment of levy".
My constituent will not benefit since, as is customary in cases where there are changes in taxation, the provision is not retrospective.

Mr. MacDermot: Can the hon. Member explain what hardship the widow suffered? It seems to me that she must have made a profit of between £800 and £900.

Mr. Dance: She had to pay out a 40 per cent. levy of £1,570 and the base value was £825. In 1962 her husband refused £1,000 for the land, and the land

was finally sold for £4,750. But the widow had to find alternative accommodation. She was not all that much in pocket.
I am arguing that it is only fair and just that when a person sells land and makes a certain profit it is only right to bear in mind that the profit does not consist of the money for which he sells the land; it is the amount of money that he receives finally. A certain amount has to be paid out in legal charges.

Mr. MacDermot: The hon. Member appears to be basing his argument on a case of hardship, but he has not told us what the hardship was.

Mr. Dance: I should not have given way. I am trying to be brief. I am pointing out that the widow is being charged this large sum of money but that she has to find alternative accommodation. She wanted to live in smaller premises, and I believe that it is utterly unjust that people should be compelled to pay levy on money they do not receive.

Sir F. Bennett: I shall speak for only two minutes. I would have thought that, looking back over past Finance Bills for many years, the Minister would feel a sense of shame at the realisation that although the arguments on this subject have been made across the Floor of the House he has found only one supporter. I cannot recall any occasion in recent years when a Minister has been able to find only one supporter—and that supporter an ex-Minister who, at the end of his speech, seemed to have made the Minister's case weaker than it was when he began speaking in his right hon. Friend's defence.
Does the Minister accept his hon. Friend's suggestion that his motive is that it was administratively difficult for the relief of these small taxes, or is his motive the more creditable and honourable one of remedying cases where genuine hardship has occurred? There was one case mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Allason) to which not enough attention has been given. Many people have been informed that they will have to pay levy at a future date. Some have started to appeal and others have not. At the moment I have told all those who have written to me that they would be


extremely foolish to pay and that they should go on resisting, because I cannot believe that in the last resort the Government will not give way on retrospection.
The worst thing that the Government can do, unless they note the warnings that we have given them tonight, is to insist that these people pay the levy and then give way at a later date, when we shall be told that it is administratively too difficult to refund those who have already paid. The Minister should make it clear whether he is saying that in the future he will take people to court and penalise them, and make them pay sums which they are not liable to pay under existing law. Will he answer that question clearly tonight?

Mr. Awdry: The hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) chided us for taking a commercial view of this matter, but it is a commercial matter. We are talking about finance; it is not a general philosophical argument. I hope that the Minister has been impressed by the fact that, in the last three and a half hours, only one speech has been made in his support. The whole of the weight of the argument has been against him. I have never heard a worse speech from the Front Bench. His deplorable case rested on two pillars, both shaky, both of which have collapsed.
The first is the question of administration costs. He started with a figure of £2¼ million which, after cross-examination, he reduced by 30 per cent.—

Mr. K. Robinson: I am sorry, but I cannot let this go on. If the hon. Gentleman will consult the OFFICIAL REPORT, he will see that I specifically used the words "disregarding the capital gains consequentials".

Mr. Awdry: At the beginning of his speech, the right hon. Gentleman said nothing about the capital gains side of it. It was only on cross-examination from this side that we discovered that there was a reduction of 30 per cent., or £750,000. He treated us with little can-dour on this question. It is purely as a result of our probing that this came to light. But, whatever the figure, even if it is £1½ million, surely the sum is not important. If there is to be justice, no

sum should stand in our way. So I reject the administration argument.
On the matter of principle, the second pillar, the Minister said that he regarded this as a major change of taxation, which should not be retrospective. But it is not a major change: it is a small measure to remove a gross injustice. All hon. Members would agree that there is an objection to retrospection if it gives the taxpayer a greater burden, but there is nothing obnoxious about it when it decreases his burden. The Socialist Party has always claimed, if nothing else, that it believes in justice. If the Government do not accept the Amendment, after this full debate, they will demonstrate that they do not practise what they preach.

Mr. Paul Dean: I wish to thank the Minister for the careful and courteous way in which he has investigated a large number of constituency cases which I have sent to him. It is the more disappointing that he should take his present attitude, in view of the way in which he considered those cases, all of which involved substantial hardship and in none of which will there be any relief from interest payments under the present proposal.
I want to describe some of the cases which I have put to the right hon. Gentleman. The first concerns a widow and an exchange of property. No money changed hands. The only way in which she can pay the levy is by letting the house which she now occupies. This is a good case of obvious hardship, which will not be helped by this proposal. Another case concerns a widow of 83, who will inevitably suffer considerably in paying the levy, amounting to over £500. Here again, these proposals will give her no help.
Another is the case of a widow and her son who live together. To pay the levy, they have had to take up a bank loan in addition to their existing mortgage. Can the Minister clarify one point? How will a bank loan taken out to pay the levy be affected by the Bill? Will it still be eligible for tax relief? If not, this is an additional element of hardship which the Bill puts on the existing hardship of paying the levy.
Another case, towards which the Minister was sympathetic but in which


he said that he could do nothing, concerned a young married couple who were sold a plot of land by their father, at below the market rate to build a house. They will also have to pay the levy, because the house has been built. They have a mortgage on the house and have spent all their other savings on furnishing it and getting it into order. Again, there will be no help from this so-called concession.
The final case concerns a modest levy, on a market value well below £1,500. In this case, the levy is not even due for payment yet. There has been argument with the Land Commission about it, and it is not due until 5th May this year. This is a classic case. How can I possibly persuade this person that there is justice in a levy when the Minister makes changes without making them retrospective, when the payment is not even due until this month?
Those are just a few of the cases, many of which the right hon. Gentleman has seen, in each of which there is substantial hardship and to which this so-called concession will be of no help.

Mr. Crowder: I give my Front Bench an undertaking that I will not speak for more than one minute. The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) said that prices have gone up, as they have, but when considering the real prices, a good example is the daily newspapers. In 1947, we paid 1d. for the Daily Express; today, we pay 5d. So, on the basis of the betterment levy, and so that prices should keep pace with inflation, would it not be just to divide every betterment levy by five?

Mr. Nott: I give an undertaking to my Front Bench that I will take a quarter of a minute. An old lady wrote to me complaining about the betterment levy and saying, "Why should a Socialist Government bring this hardship on my shoulders?" I said to her that I could only quote the words of the Lord Chancellor in another place. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said:
My Lords, for too long the property speculators have bled white those of our people who have wanted a home to live in at a price or at a rent they could afford. I commend this Bill to the House as a means by which this racket will be ended …"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 14th November, 1967; Vol. 277, c. 1088.]

This widow now understands why the Socialist Government want her £100, in words which combined all the pompous righteousness of some lawyers with the naivety of the Socialist. If the Minister cannot agree to the Amendment, he will never again be able to explain away the Socialists' philosophy.

Mr. Paul Hawkins: I give no promise to my Front Bench, but I will not be long. First, I want to thank the Minister for the courteous letter which I received late last night on six cases about which I wrote to him. On the other hand, I was shocked to hear that there could be no retrospection. I took up one case of a levy of only £65 faced by an elderly lady who sold off the back of her garden to put the roof of her cottage into repair. Having spent all the money on the roof, she suddenly realises that she must pay £65. She has only an old-age pension; she does not have the money.
I was glad to see that Sir Henry Wells said that there could be no insuperable administrative difficulty about repaying money which has been paid, or waiving these payments. If the Minister refuses to accept what Sir Henry Wells said, I hope that these small sums, which cannot be waived because the Bill does not come into effect soon enough, can be collected on the date of death from the estates of those concerned, instead of these people being taken to court. I hope that the Minister can give these people some assurance, so that they will not be worried, as they are being, by these charges during their lifetime.

Mr. K. Robinson: We have had an extended debate, although not one in which many new issues have been raised—not surprisingly, perhaps, in view of the number of times that we have debated betterment levy in recent months. But I will do my best to answer those points which have been raised. Most hon. Members have naturally concentrated on the area of hardship. I had better deal with this aspect first.
My hon. and learned Friend, the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot) is perfectly right in this issue. In his extremely cogent speech, arguing the main case about retrospection, he reminded the House that vastly more


than any possible hardship cases will be exempted by this £1,500 de minimis exemption. I said that, because this took care of the smaller cases, it would embrace certain cases of hardship or alleged hardship. Both nothing I said ever conveyed the impression, I think, that most or any substantial number of the cases which would be exempted would be hardship cases.
Indeed, the greater number of what we would all agree are cases of hardship come under the heading of gifts of land, which are taken care of by the separate gifts concession, which we cannot discuss today because it is in that part of the Bill which is going to a Standing Committee. But I said that that was one concession where it has been possible to give retrospection.
My hon. and learned Friend asked what number I thought would be regarded as hardship cases. The Land Commission told me some time ago that, in all the assessments, some element of hardship had been claimed in rather less than 3 per cent. of the cases. From my experience—I have had a substantial postbag during the last few months on this matter—I can say that, out of nearly 10,000 assessments which would have come within the £1,500 concession, fewer than 500 claiming hardship have reached me, either directly from the public or through hon. Members. I hope that that helps to put the matter in some perspective.
As to what is to be done with what we might call outstanding cases of hardship, I should like to say something about the Land Commission's rôle. Quite properly, the Act gives the Commission power to do nothing but make assessments according to law, but the Commission has power to adapt the method of payment to the circumstances of the levy payer. It can agree to accept payment by instalments, or to postpone payment, and it is making full use of these powers where it is satisfied, after the necessary inquiries, that hardship would be caused if the levy payer were asked to pay the whole of the levy at once.

Mr. Lubbock: I wondered whether this rule covers the case which I raised

with the right hon. Gentleman on 28th April, of a person assessed for levy who was living on supplementary benefit. Would she be excused from payment permanently under this rule?

Mr. Robinson: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will let me finish. I was about to deal with his personal case. I am sorry that he thought that I ignored the case because he failed to get a reply within a fortnight of writing. I agree that this is longer than I would like, but the Land Commission is under some pressure on individual cases at the moment—not surprisingly—and I have to seek its advice before replying. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that he will get a reply before the end of this week on that case.
The waiver of interest in cases where the amount of levy is not more than £1,000 will help the Land Commission considerably in enabling it to make concessions for instalments without increasing the ultimate amount to be paid. In particular, it will make it possible for the Commission to agree to long-term postponements, subject to examination at intervals, in cases where amounts are to be paid off the debt over a reasonable period. I am sure that the Commission will exercise these powers with great humanity and understanding, as I believe it has done throughout.
The speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), a former Minister of Health, included a fascinating discourse of some length on the constitutional aspects of retrospective legislation and its effects on the vested rights of the citizen. He admittedly, later in his speech, turned only briefly to the question of retrospection in the context of taxation changes. He dealt with this matter in far less depth than he did the broader question, which was not the case that I was trying to make.
I noticed that, at the end of the day, the right hon. and learned Gentleman, with his vast experience both political and professional, did not cite one instance of a general change in taxation, as this is, which has been made retrospective. Nor do I believe could he have done so.
The hon. and learned Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster) will appreciate


why I did not originally understand the proposition he tried to make in an intervention during my earlier remarks. There were two reasons why I did not understand him: first, because he tried to explain it in shorthand, so to speak, as one often does in an intervention; and, secondly, because he did not fully understand the nature of the de minimis provision. However, I got the point he had in mind when he spoke later.
I am not saying that the administrative difficulties in the way of such a solution would be insuperable. However, they would be extremely difficult to overcome.

Sir J. Foster: Sir J. Fosterrose—

Mr. Robinson: The hon. and learned Gentleman said that he would be interested to know what I thought about his idea. I trust that he will allow me to tell him without interrupting.
The hon. and learned Gentleman suggested a form of tapering.

Sir J. Foster: I did not.

Mr. Robinson: It was a form of tapering which we do not have for the future. It would, indeed, be odd to have such a concept for the past, particularly as we do not have it for the future. Another complication which would inevitably ensue is that we do not have tapering because of the capital gains tax consequentials. They are difficult enough to manage for the future. They would be very nearly impossible for the past and for that reason his proposition is not an acceptable answer.

Sir J. Foster: The rule would be that where a person entered into a transaction for a sum of more than £1,500 before 5th April, 1967, he could elect to say, "This is a transaction valued at £1,500" and he would get back the betterment levy which he had paid, minus the excess on the transaction over that sum. By this means the Land Commission would be pleased, because it would get something extra and the man would be pleased because he will have saved a little money.

Mr. Robinson: I heard the hon. and learned Gentleman perfectly, but I fear that I am no wiser after that intervention. Perhaps I, too, was speaking in shorthand in calling his proposition a tapering one. However, I am sure that he will agree that it would be a crude

form of tapering, so that my argument against it stands.

Sir J. Foster: Sir J. Fosterrose—

Mr. Robinson: I will not give way again.
The hon. and learned Member for Northwich made another objection, although I thought that this one was somewhat odd. He said that we were considering a point of envy. I hope that I am not misrepresenting him by saying that he said that it could not harm somebody who did not benefit if somebody else did benefit. Is not the hon. and learned Gentleman aware that this whole debate on the question of retrospection is concerned with that very point? I was indeed surprised to hear him make that suggestion in this connection.
A number of hon. Members have raised personal cases which they will not expect me to deal with in the context of a Committee discussion of the Bill. However, if there are cases about which I have not heard before, or to which I have not had time to reply, I assure the Committee that those matters will be dealt with.
The hon. Member for Poole (Mr. Murton) briefly mentioned a case which has had a certain amount of publicity. He may be interested to know that no assessment whatever has been made in that case. The district valuer has merely given an opinion about the current use value of the property. I invited the gentleman concerned, Mr. Dutt, to enter into negotiations with the district valuer. The offer is still open, but Mr. Dutt has not taken it up. There is no question of any assessment having been made and it is, therefore, a little early for one to condemn the Land Commission or the district valuer on that point.
I have given the reasons which led the Government to advance these proposals, including the one which we are discussing. There is, of course, an incidental advantage—perhaps it is more than that—in terms of the administrative savings which will be capable of being made by eliminating 50 per cent. of the cases of levy. However, the fact that we are putting forward these proposals carries no implication that the collection of levy in all such cases in the past was a gross injustice, such as most hon. Gentlemen opposite have continued to assert and


have thereby based most of their argument for retrospection.
We have made improvements in the levy for the future and they are substantial improvements going well beyond the concessions which were being demanded, at least by those who were not calling for the total abolition of the levy and the Commission.

Mr. Dean: A constituent of mine has taken out a bank loan to pay his levy. Will he still qualify for tax relief on the interest?

Mr. Robinson: That is a matter for my colleagues at the Treasury. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman's question has been noted and that he will get a reply.

Mr. Peter Walker: Not only my hon. Friends feel disappointed at the Minister's opening and closing speeches. It is clear that hon. Gentlemen opposite are equally disappointed over the attitude that he has taken in this matter.
The Minister had only one defender, and that was the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot), although he conceded the legal validity of the cogent remarks of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith). The hon. and learned Gentleman clung to a thin argument which was primarily based on the fact that this was a concession which would be far more widely spread than those cases of hardship to which reference had been made and that such a concession should not be made retrospective.
In his early remarks, the Minister did not make that point. However, in his closing speech he, too, clung to that argument as the one straw of hope for getting support. He argued that only a minority of cases involved hardship, but if he examines his comments he will note that he has constantly argued on the basis that this concession is being made to eliminate hardship. Indeed, he said:
The House will recall that on that occasion I invited hon. Members to let me know of cases which they received from constituents where the incidence of betterment levy was operating with undue severity.
Later he went on:
This was to supplement the factual information I had already gathered from a close

study of the operation of the Act, which I began shortly after taking up my present office. This enabled me, in time, to formulate clear ideas about what should be done to give some relief in future to private individuals of small means, particularly to those for whom a transaction chargeable to levy was an occasion which occurs once in a lifetime".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th April, 1969; Vol. 782, c. 1077.]
The right hon. Gentleman is now saying that those who have suffered most severely from the impact of the levy in the past will receive no help from the Government. He also argues that cases involving owner-occupiers are the most severe cases of hardship.

Mr. K. Robinson: indicated dissent.

Mr. Walker: I do not want to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman. He referred to gifts and pointed out the concession which was being made, the hardship that had arisen and the fact that the principle of retrospection would apply in those cases. However, when dealing with the question with which we are concerned, he said in the debate in April that the first proposal in the White Paper dealt with another form of hardship—and that is the very type of hardship with which we are dealing. It is a form of hardship for which he will give no help.
The hon. and learned Member for Derby, North made a remarkable point when he asked, in effect, "What about those who decided not to sell their land because this levy existed? Will not they feel hard done by if this concession is made retrospectively, remembering that they could have sold their land lone ago?"
Considering that the hon. and learned Gentleman was once a Minister and was concerned with this type of matter, he should be aware that the Act was designed to bring land forward for development. Now he speaks about people being stopped from allowing land to come forward for development because of the existence of this levy.
In referring to a case which had been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Poole (Mr. Murton), which has obtained a great deal of publicity recently—the case of Mr. Dutt and his family—the Minister said that an assessment had not yet been made and that the district valuer only given his view of the position. Does not this illustrate how difficult it is for people


to obtain professional advice about how they will be hit by the levy?
The hon. Member for Reading (Mr. John Lee), another lawyer, pointed out how difficult it was to understand this legislation. Why blame people if they do not take legal advice or if they get bad legal advice when even the lawyers do not understand the Act? This legislation is so badly drafted that even they cannot interpret is provisions.
Among hon. Gentlemen opposite who spoke against the Government in this matter was the hon. Member for Oldham, East (Mr. Mapp), who is not noted to be a rebel among his colleagues. He pleaded with the Minister to give way on this point. We had the hon. Member for Reading, representing the Left, and the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), representing the Right, both pleading with the right hon. Gentleman to give way.
Most significant of all was the speech of the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey), who must have a guilty conscience today. He introduced this legislation under which 10,000 people would not have paid levy had he given a little more thought to the Act before introducing it. At least he has had the sense to admit his mistakes. He pleaded with the Government to remedy his mistakes, but they refused.
As my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East pointed out, the most important argument adduced by my hon. Friends received little attention from the Minister. Nobody has argued that the Government should never be allowed to pass retrospective legislation if it benefits the individual citizen, and this is the principle we are discussing.
The administrative arguments which the right hon. Gentleman adduced at length were remarkable. He said that the Inland Revenue was already working under terrible pressure. Whose fault is that? It is partly the fault of the hon. and learned Member for Derby, North who, in conjunction with the present Chief Secretary, did more to complicate the work of the Inland Revenue than any other two hon. Members. But to plead that such is the overburdening of the Inland Revenue, as a result of four

years of Socialist legislation, that it cannot perform the administrative task of eliminating hardship caused by the Government is a very hollow plea indeed. The Minister quite rightly mentioned that the sum involved was free of capital gains deduction, but he did not know what the figure was. It was only a cross-examination and a hurried consultation with officials that gave us the information that the sum to be saved was not £2¼ million but £1½ million.
He later pleaded that because of complications some might pay more, because, as companies, they would pay 42½ per cent. The solution to that problem is easy—just repay individuals and not companies. His argument based on the problems of cases of over £1,500 was completely and devastatingly dealt with by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northwich (Sir J. Foster), who supplied an easy formula to deal with those cases.
So the Minister continues, as he has done month after month, to insist on taking no action for those who have suffered from this legislation. He is a sort of Robin Hood in reverse—or a "Robinson Hood" might be a more appropriate title. The main theme is to rob the poor in order to swell the coffers of the Land Commission. Having robbed the poor, and having admitted that it is wrong to do so, the right hon. Gentleman does nothing to repay the poor whom he has robbed in that period.
We have all quoted the letter written by Sir Henry Wells on the subject of the administration of the Land Commission. Sir Henry makes it clear in that letter that there is no great problem. The Minister kept talking about an insuperable problem, but Sir Henry was not of the same opinion. What Sir Henry—quite rightly, perhaps, in his position—has never pronounced on is whether or not he would like to repay this money. If I were chairman of the Land Commission, bearing in mind all the bad morale that must exist there and the thoroughly bad name the Commission has—not due to the actions of its officers, I am the first to concede that its officers have not been guilty, but due to this bad legislation—nothing could please me more than to be able to repay this money and remove the hostility to the Land Commission.
The Minister had better face up to another problem. He sometimes complains that we have already had seven or eight debates on this topic, but all those people who have sold land prior to 5th April have yet to be assessed for levy. They will have to pay the levy, although their transactions involve less than £1,500. In June or July, in September or November—or, perhaps, next year—they will start receiving their assessments for betterment levy. I hope that every such case is brought to the House and debated, and that hon. Members on both sides will continue to hound the Government until they repay the people whom they have robbed.

Division No. 214.]
AYES
[7.44 p.m.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Gower, Raymond
Nicholls, Sir Harmar


Astor, John
Grant, Anthony
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Grant-Ferris, R.
Nott, John


Awdry, Daniel
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Osborn, John (Hallam)


Baker, Kenneth (Aston)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Balniel, Lord
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Page, John (Harrow, W.)


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Percival, Ian


Batsford, Brian
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Bell, Ronald
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Pink, R. Bonner


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Hastings, Stephen
Pounder, Rafton


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Hawkins, Paul
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Prior, J. M. L.




Quennell, Miss J. M.


Bessell, Peter
Heseltine, Michael
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Biffen, John
Higgins, Terence L.
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Black, Sir Cyril
Hiley, Joseph
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Blaker, Peter
Hill, J. E. B.
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Hirst, Geoffrey
Ridley, Hn Nicholas


Body, Richard
Holland, Philip
Ridsdale, Julian


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Hordern, Peter
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Hornby, Richard
Scott-Hopkins, James


Brinton, Sir Tafton
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Iremonger, T. L.
Silvester, Frederick


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N &amp; M)
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Sinclair, Sir George


Buck, Antony (Colchester)
Kershaw, Anthony
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Bullus, Sir Eric
Kimball, Marcus
Speed, Keith


Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Stainton, Keith


Chichester-Clark, R.
Kitson, Timothy
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Clegg, Walter
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Stodart, Anthony


Corfield, F. V.
Lane, David
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Costain, A. P.
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Temple, John M.


Currie, G. B. H.
Lubbock, Eric
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Dalkeith, Earl of
Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross &amp; Crom'ty)
Tilney, John


Dance, James
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain
Waddington, David


d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
McMaster, Stanley
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Dean, Paul
McNair-Wilson, Michael (W'stow, E.)
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
Maddan, Martin
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Doughty, Charles
Maginnis, John E.
Walters, Dennis


Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Weatherill, Bernard


Emery, Peter
Marten, Neil
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Errington, Sir Eric
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Whitelaw Rt. Hn. William


Eyre, Reginald
Mawby, Ray
Wiggin, A. W.


Farr, John
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Fortescue, Tim
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.


Foster, Sir John
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Wright, Esmond


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
More, Jasper
Wylie, N. R.


Glover, Sir Douglas
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)



Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Goodhart, Philip
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Mr. Anthony Royle and


Goodhew, Victor
Murton, Oscar
Mr. Hector Monro.

It is because of the Government's miserable failure to act properly over a minute sum of £1½ million, and because of their insistence over cases of hardship involving 5,000 families who have sold little plots of land, that I hope that not only my hon. Friends but those hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite who have spoken so strongly against the levy, will vote for the Amendment and thus show that the Committee still has some standards of decency.

Question put, That the Amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 156, Noes 204.

NOES


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Anderson, Donald
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Morris, John (Aberavon)


Archer, Peter
Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)
Moyle, Roland


Ashley, Jack
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Neal, Harold


Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Newens, Stan


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Hamling, William
Oakes, Gordon


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Hannan, William
Oram, Albert E.


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Orme, Stanley


Barnett, Joel
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Oswald, Thomas


Baxter, William
Hattersley, Roy
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)


Beaney, Alan
Hazell, Bert
Padley, Walter


Bence, Cyril
Heffer, Eric S.
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)


Bidwell, Sydney
Henig, Stanley
Paget, R. T.


Binns, John
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Palmer, Arthur


Bishop, E. S.
Hilton, W. S.
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles


Blackburn, F.
Hooley, Frank
Park, Trevor


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Horner, John
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Booth, Albert
Hoy, James
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)


Brooks, Edwin
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Pavitt, Laurence


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)


Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Perry Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)


Buchan, Norman
Hunter, Adam
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Hynd, John
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Irvine, Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Price, William (Rugby)


Carmichael, Neil
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Rankin, John


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)


Conlan, Bernard
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Robinon, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P'c'as)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Roebuck, Roy


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Judd, Frank
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Kelley, Richard
Ryan, John


Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Kenyon, Clifford
Sheldon, Robert


Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Silverman, Julius


Davies, Rt. Hn. Harold (Leek)
Lawson, George
Slater, Joseph


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Leadbitter, Ted
Small, William


Delargy, Hugh
Lee, Rt. Hn. Jennie (Cannock)
Spriggs, Leslie


Dell, Edmund
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Dempsey, James
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Taverne, Dick


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Loughlin, Charles
Thornton, Ernest


Dickens, James
Luard, Evan
Tinn, James


Driberg, Tom
McBride, Neil
Tuck, Raphael


Dunnett, Jack
Mccann, John
Urwin, T. W.


Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)
MacColl, James
Varley, Eric G.


Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
MacDermot, Niall
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Eadie, Alex
Macdonald, A. H.
Walden, Brian (All Saints)


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
McGuire, Michael
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)




Wallace, George


Ellis, John
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Watkins, David (Consett)


English, Michael
Mackenzie, Cregor (Rutherglen)
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)


Ensor, David
Mackie, John
Weitzman, David


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Mackintosh, John P.
Wellbeloved, James


Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Fernyhough, E.
McNamara, J. Kevin
White, Mrs. Eirene


Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir Eric (Islington, E.)
MacPherson, Malcolm
Whitlock, William


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Wilkins, W. A.


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Ford, Ben
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Forrester, John
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Fowler, Gerry
Mapp, Charles
Willis, Rt. Hn. George


Fraser, John (Norwood)
Marquand, David
Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)


Freeson, Reginald
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Gardner, Tony
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Woof, Robert


Ginsburg, David
Mikardo, Ian



Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Millan, Bruce
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Gregory, Arnold
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Mr. Joseph Harper and


Grey, Charles (Durham)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Mr. Charles R Morris.

Mr. Hugh Rossi: I beg to move Amendment No. 9, in page 50, line 12, leave out '£1,500' and insert '£5,000'.

The Deputy Chairman (Mr. Harry Gourlay): With this Amendment it may

be for the convenience of the Committee if we discuss Amendment No. 10, in page 50, line 12, after '£1,500' insert:
'or such larger amount as the Minister of Housing and Local Government may by order determine'.


Amendment No. 11, in line 13, leave out from beginning to end of line 18 on page 51, and insert:
(b) the parties to the act or event certify that such act or event does not form part of an act or event or a series of acts or events of which the top value or the total of the top values exceeds £5,000.
Amendment No. 12, in line 34, leave out '£1,500' and insert '£5,000'.
Amendment No. 14, in page 51, line 31, after 'that' insert 'any certificate or'.

Mr. Rossi: I am obliged, Mr. Gourlay. Amendments Nos. 12 and 14 would be consequential on Amendment No. 9, whereas Amendment No. 11 would make a substantial variation in the Bill. I assume that Amendment No. 10 will be moved by the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock).

The Deputy Chairman: The other Amendments are not being moved, but can be spoken to.

Mr. Rossi: I am obliged.
The Amendment is closely in keeping with a new Clause moved by my hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) in Standing Committee on the Land Commission Bill. That Clause sought to exclude from levy all cases where the price or value of land did not exceed £5,000. In his admirable speech in support of the Clause my hon. Friend said that there was
a tradition of exemption of small transactions.
in fiscal measures. He made particular reference to exemption from stamp duty and estate duty. Any sale of land to the value of £5,500 or less is exempt from the incidence of stamp duty.
Under the Bill, estate duty is no longer to be charged on estates of £10,000 or less. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget speech, when referring to the new provision, said that he wished this exemption to operate particularly in those cases where the principal asset of the estate was the house in which the deceased's family resided; in these days of inflation the value of that house composed the greater part of that estate, and he thought it to be rather hard and unconscionable that estate duty should be charged in those circumstances. That was the Chancellor's justification for raising the estate duty exemption level to

£10,000. Similar thinking could well have applied to the betterment levy, but apparently it does not.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde said on 9th August, 1966, that the argument in favour of his Clause was an effort
to reduce the volume of work which will flow to the Land Commission … We also heard something today of the avalanche of forms which are to descend on to the Land Commission. The Commission will have many problems to deal with, and we believe that one of the great advantages of granting this exemption would be to speed the flow of business within the Land Commission and also to make small transactions outside the Land Commission work much more smoothly."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E; 9th August, 1966, c. 988–9.]
It is not without interest to note that the White Paper, introducing the present modifications in the levy, tells us that the exemptions proposed by the Bill, namely, where the sale price does not exceed £1,500, will account for
half of all cases at present giving rise to liability under the Act, and which account for only about one-tenth of total levy.
Therefore, if regard is paid to what is said in the White Paper, it will be seen immediately that hon. Members on this side have been proved right once again, as they have been time and time again in all our discussions on the Land Commission.
The argument presented in the White Paper in favour of the exemption of land of value of less than £1,500 is one purely of administrative convenience. It is to get rid of the paperwork which is cluttering up the Commission. It will get rid of half the total number of cases with which the Commission has to deal and which produce a very small return for all that labour. There is not one word in the White Paper about hardship. There is not one word of regret for the misery that has been caused to all the people who have suffered from the legislation. That is the test of the matter. The Government are merely seeking administrative convenience. They are exempting cases involving £1,500 or under to save the Commission a great deal of paper work that we warned it would have in any case.
8.0 p.m.
But we on this side are not concerned purely with matters of administrative convenience. We are concerned to see that


the legislation does not cause hardship to ordinary men and women. The £1,500 limit that we are being asked to give will be of no assistance to the couple in Buckinghamshire, of whose case the Minister is well aware. An old gentleman of 76 and his wife had a small cottage in respect of which the local authority served an order requiring them to bring it up to certain standards.
Apart from their pension, they had no money. They certainly did not have the capital to spend upwards of £1,000 on their property, and so they decided to sell a piece of the cottage garden. That produced about £1,800, resulting in a large levy. The Minister knows the details of the case and the hardship caused to that couple. Yet that is the kind of case which will be in no way helped by the exemption, quite apart from the consideration of retrospection which we discussed earlier.
I read with surprise in the White Paper that the £1,500 limit would account for about half the present cases giving rise to liability under the Act, having in mind that case of the small garden in Buckinghamshire. I invite the Minister to give the House more information about such cases. In our earlier debate he was asked to give his analysis of them and produce evidence in support of what the White Paper states. I again invite him to do that. It would be of great interest to hon. Members to have such a document placed in the Library, where it would be readily available to us all. When the analysis is published I believe that the proposed concession in the Bill will be seen to offer little if any benefit for substantial areas, particularly in the South-East of England.
It is for that reason that in the Amendment we propose a far more realistic figure. Local authorities in the London area are having to pay between £4,500 and £5,500 for terrace houses which they intend to demolish in connection with clearance schemes. If that is the level of price having to be paid for slum clearance properties in London, what plots of land are available at £1,500 in the South East? I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Costain) who spoke in our earlier debate about chicken hutches, which were about all that could be bought for that figure in some parts of England.
I also remind the Minister that when the Government opposed the new Clause to which I have already referred in Committee on the Land Commission Bill there was a tacit acceptance of the sum of £5,000, because not a word was said about that figure being inaccurate or excessive. The right hon. Gentleman will see in the OFFICIAL REPORT of the Committee proceedings that the then Minister of Land and Natural Resources objected to our Amendment for three reasons. First, he said that it was difficult to draw a line such as was proposed in the new Clause without leaving a sense of unfairness. In other words, he said that everything had to go into the bag or a feeling of injustice would be created.
If that argument is good for £5,000 it is good for £1,500. It is merely a question where one draws the line. It is arbitrary at any level. If that was a valid argument by the Minister of Land and Natural Resources on 9th August, 1966 it is valid today in respect of not only £5,000, but £1,500.
The second argument was that if the new Clause was accepted it might be unfair to some vendors and developers, because they would lose the advantage of being able to claim, under Schedule 5 of the Act, base value on a previous transaction. If that argument was valid for £5,000 in 1966 it is valid for £1,500 today.
The right hon. Gentleman's third argument was on the possibility of evasion. He said:
A housing estate would not be a housing estate; it would be a number of separate individual projects, each of them less than £5,000. In that way we should be wide open to evasion."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee E, 9th August, 1966; c. 991.]
If that argument was valid in 1966 for £5,000 it is valid today for £1,500. The argument then was that the owner of a large estate could split it up into a number of small plots, each of £5,000, sell them off individually and thereby try to avoid the levy. In exactly the same way he could break them up into smaller plots of £1,500.
None of the arguments against our new Clause in 1966 is apparently relied on by the Government today, because they are proposing their own arbitrary figure. The difference between us—the difference between £1,500 and £5,000—is one on


which we must ask the Minister to give his explanation. The real difference between us is that he is concerned purely with administrative convenience, while we are concerned with hardship to people. If he would soften his heart just a little and see the effect that the levy is having on ordinary men and women who are trying to sell their houses and pieces of their garden, if he were concerned with the problems that arose from those circumstances, he would be with us all the way.
But the right hon. Gentleman is not concerned with that. He is concerned with cutting out such paper work as does not give a sufficiently remunerative return for the Land Commission. On that, we go no way with him at all. Those are the main considerations we wish to put forward on Amendment No. 9 and the Amendments consequential upon it.
We propose Amendment No. 11 as a tidying-up Amendment to replace all the verbiage from line 13 on page 50 to line 18 on page 51. The purpose of all those words is to meet the possibility of evasion, to meet the case of an estate owner who breaks up his property into a number of separate plots each of £1,500 or less in value, thereby escaping the levy on the totality of his estate. With respect, we regard that as a clumsy way of doing it, and we propose our Amendment No. 11 in substitution therefor.
That Amendment follows closely the certificate for value which is to be found for stamp duty purposes on every conveyance or transfer of land, in which the parties to the document have to declare that the event there recorded is not one of a series of transactions in respect of which the total consideration exceeds the figure at which stamp duty begins to be payable. It is a familiar formula, a formula easily understood by professional advisers who have to help people to understand this legislation, and it is hallowed by long use.
I do not much like the use of the term "top value". It reminds one of the term "O.K. user" which one may find in a town planning Bill in the future. However, we have taken "top value" from the Bill as it stands, so we do not have to apologise for it.
Those are the considerations which we put to the Committee. Above all else,

we seek to put the Minister firmly to proof of his £1,500 limit. We ask him to show that he really wants to do something to help, not merely for the purpose of administrative convenience. Yea or nay, is he concerned with hardship? If he is, he must accept our Amendment and agree to the raising of the limit to £5,000.

Mr. Lubbock: The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) made a good case so far as it goes, but the difficulty in his argument—I think that he accept it himself—is that whatever figure one chooses is bound to be arbitrary and sooner or later it will be overtaken by the rises in land and property prices which have been a common experience in the past few years. It would, therefore, be better if we gave the Minister some flexibility, allowing him to take account of changes in the value of land which will inevitably come in the next few years.

Mr. Rossi: I am sorry to interrupt so soon, but, having heard all that has been said today, could the hon. Gentleman really trust the Minister to act fairly and with justice in this matter? Ought we not to impose a figure upon him?

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Lubbock: At least, we should always have opportunity to press this Minister or whoever succeeded him to make an Order as the values of land change in course of time. We could constantly apply that lever in seeking to have the exemption limit raised. If, on the other hand, we lay down a hard and fast figure in the Bill, whether £1,500 or £5,000, we shall need an amending Measure to raise it to a more realistic level. Having in mind what has happened to house and land prices over the past few years, I could not regard that as satisfactory. In my own constituency, house prices have rocketed in recent years far beyond the level which most ordinary young couples can afford, and I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman and many other hon. Members can parallel that experience.
Land and property values can change rapidly. Whatever legislation the House chooses to pass, we must allow an element of flexibility. The present Minister might not see fit to exercise the power which I propose to confer on him, but he will not be there for ever. There


will come a time, one hopes, when more realistic counsels prevail in the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. I only wish that we could have had such an exemption limit written into the Land Commission Bill from the start. We might not have had this argument now. But that is all water under the bridge. None the less, I am sure that we should make a mistake if we put in a figure of £1,500 or £5,000 into this Bill in the expectation that it could remain realistic for all time.
I put another point to the Minister in connection with the arbitrary nature of any figure, and I hope that he will deal specifically with it. He told us several times that half the transactions will be taken out of levy by the £1,500 limit and that this will mean a loss of revenue to the Land Commission of ony 10 per cent. It would be of great assistance, particularly in the present context, to have a histogram showing the number of transactions—I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman understands what I mean—

Mr. Clegg: I am afraid I do not.

Mr. Lubbock: Perhaps, if I continue the sentence, the hon. Gentleman will understand—a histogram showing the number of transactions with top values of £1,500, £2,000 and so on in steps of £500 up to £5,000, and showing the loss of revenue to the Land Commission if the limit were fixed anywhere between those two end figures. Does the hon. Gentleman follow me?

Mr. Clegg: Yes, I do now.

Mr. Lubbock: We could then see the amount of revenue which the right hon. Gentleman was aiming to secure from the Land Commission under the £1,500 limit, and so on up to the £5,000 suggested in the Conservative Amendment. I have no doubt that the losing of only a small proportion of revenue is the uppermost consideration in the right hon. Gentleman's mind.
With those figures, we should be on much stronger ground in arguing with the right hon. Gentleman on his own terms. Without them, however, it is rather difficult for hon. Members—bearing in mind that we represent taxpayers and we do not want to damage the revenue which is coming to the Government

by means of this levy—to decide that we want the figure to be pitched at a particular level. That is why I have chosen not to stick my neck out by putting a figure in my Amendment. If the right hon. Gentleman could produce those figures before the Bill came back to the House on Report, we should be in a much better position to judge.
Intuitively, I guess that, if one has to have a fixed limit written into the Bill, I would sooner see £5,000, for the simple reason that if it is to be a fixed limit it will be there for a long time, and I should not imagine that it will take very long for a piece of land or property at present worth £1,500 to increase to the figure mentioned in the Conservative Amendment. I should also like the Minister to give me the equivalent information for the reduction in the number of assessments that have to be made. The cost of collecting the levy is frighteningly high, or has been so far, in relation to the benefits secured. I know that the right hon. Gentleman will tell me that it was always anticipated that it would take four or five years for the levy to build up to the anticipated figure of £80 million. I just do not believe that it will ever reach £80 million.
In the meanwhile, if we look at the report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General on the Land Commission's activities for its first financial year, we can see what an extremely poor bargain this has been for the taxpayer. Levy collected amounted to something like £1 million, but the Land Commission had to spend £2,384,000 to collect it. The revenue was therefore negatived. I am trying to help the right hon. Gentleman by suggesting that if we did agree on a higher limit we could, as he has said, cut down on the paper work. We could dismiss or transfer to more useful employment some of the many people employed in the Land Commission.
I should have thought that this would be an argument which would appeal to the Government when we are facing this appalling trade deficit and financial and economic difficulties unparalleled in our history. To have these people sitting in the Land Commission pushing pieces of paper around for the sake of 2s. 6d. is economic madness. The sooner these people get out into productive industry, into the motor car industry, the mines,


into the aluminium foundries and so on, the sooner this country will recover her financial position.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can also give us this vital piece of information about how many assessments would be eliminated by increasing the limit. Then we would be in a better position to judge the matter. I hope that I am not asking the right hon. Gentleman too much, but so frequently we have to make decisions on the basis of totally inadquate facts and figures from the Government. The next piece of information for which I am asking is absolutely essential. I should like to know how much he estimates would be raised by way of capital gains tax, again in these steps of £500, between a limit of £1,500 and £5,000. We will not lose the whole of our revenue, whatever the actual sum it. Some of it will come back to the Treasury and the right hon. Gentleman ought to tell us roughly how much.
I will not hold him to the last £1,000 and rebuke him if, in the end, it turns out that his figures are not completely accurate, but we are entitled to this information when dealing with fairly large sums of money and considering what is best for his own Department's finance and for the taxpayer.
I agree with the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) who spoke about hardship. Undeniably there have been serious cases of hardship. Whatever the financial arguments that may be put forward, this is a matter to which hon. Members ought to pay primary attention. We can discuss the details of taxation, where the level should be pitched, and all these complicated economic questions, but in the last resort we have to listen to our constituents and what they are telling us about the burden of these payments as seen through their eyes. I know that hardship is a relative term. I have already mentioned the case of a constituent of mine who has had to pay the levy, and who was in receipt of no other income apart from supplementary benefit and a pension.
Such a person looks at hardship in a very different light from a person who may have retired with an occupational pension, who has a very small house, and is disposing of it for a sum greater than £1,500. Hardship is relative, and it may

seem that the £500 figure is a fairly relative one. With the general rising standards of prosperity, which come about, not through the political efforts of any Government but as the result of a general rise in Western standards, I would have thought that we should have a slightly better idea about what constitutes hardship. To speak about people disposing of a house for £5,000 as being in the upper income bracket is absolutely ridiculous.
If the right hon. Gentleman does not see fit to accept my Amendment, which gives him an improved flexibility to vary these limits as and when economic circumstances permit, as and when the factors I have outlined enable him to do so, I hope that he will accept the Conservative Amendment, and put it at £5,000, even if it must remain there for some time.

Mr. Ridsdale: I am glad to support the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi). When the Minister was dealing with the case against retrospective legislation he said that the £1,500 benefit was very generous. I ask him to think again about this. My hon. Friend has cited a case, and I have sent the Minister another. How the right hon. Gentleman can say that he thinks that this is a generous benefit after these cases I cannot imagine. He is being hard-hearted and ignoring the grave hardship which is being caused.
Unless he alters this provision, and raises the limit to £5,000, now that he has given certain benefits, a lot more people—retired pensioners living on small fixed incomes—may want to sell their land but will have to pay very high rates of tax. I want to cite the case of a retired pensioner who sold a piece of land for £2,200. The betterment levy was £724. I have sent details of the case to the Minister. The pensioner in question wrote to me and said:
As a family we are broke. As a pensioner I cannot find work. My wife and three sons are ill clad and their diet is below substandard. Most of our furniture has been sold to survive. We have been without fuel during this very cold weather. The Government then add insult to our woe by taking £724 …. These are the hard, cruel facts, and the Minister dares to state that he is sorry.
It is no wonder that the Minister nods his head and says that £1,500 is a generous benefit. I do not believe that it is


generous. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to think again, because I am convinced that unless he raises the limit to £5,000, further hardship cases will come forward.
It is all very well for the Minister to go to the Dispatch Box, quote figures of hardship and say that there are 500 cases and only 250 will be above the £1,500 limit, or whatever the figure is. It is bad legislation that creates this kind of hardship. If there was only one case such as I have quoted, it would be the duty of the Government to see that the legislation was altered. They purport to be the friend of the pensioner and of people on small fixed incomes.
At this time, when the cost of living is rising and it is more and more difficult for people to pay the rising prices, I hope that the Minister will think again and not only be generous, but save the Government a great deal of embarrassment. I am sure that it would not cost a great deal of money to accept the Amendment and raise the limit to £5,000. For these reasons, I support the Amendment which my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey so ably put forward.

[Mr. SYDNEY IRVING in the Chair]

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Clegg: The case for the Amendments has been properly and ably put by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) and well illustrated by my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale). They have made a formidable case. I was also interested to hear the contribution of the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock), whose speech was both interesting and, for my part, educative, because I am much wiser now than before I heard it. Possibly, the best solution to the arguments put forward by the hon. Member would be to write £5,000 into the Bill and then add the words of his Amendment, which would give us the best of all possible worlds.
I regret that I may bore the Committee by looking at some of the technical aspects of the Clause and of Amendment No. 11, which would leave out from the beginning of line 13, page 50, to the end of line 18, page 51, thereby cutting out a great deal of verbiage.
We have heard in the debate of people suffering hardship because solicitors, in particular, did not advise them of the consequences of their actions. Hon. Members are fairly well aware that I am a solicitor, and so I have an interest in the argument. I took a very poor view of the argument put forward by the Minister. He used it in the previous debate and he repeated it today, when it was picked up by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. MacDermot).
I take a very dim view of this, because throughout the debates on the Land Commission Bill the Government were told time and time again that it was difficult to understand and practically incomprehensible and would throw a tremendous burden on the profession. They were warned that this would happen. In the other place, their most distinguished lawyer said that he did not understand it. Is it any wonder, therefore, that from time to time their advice may not have been all that it should have been? The Government went ahead, however, in spite of all we told them would happen.
Amendment No. 11 seeks to take out some of the verbiage and introduce a far more simple concept. This is the sort of verbiage which it is designed to take out; it illustrates some of the complexity which makes advising on the Bill an absolute nightmare. For example, subsection (5) says:
If, apart from the provisions of this section, levy in Case C in respect of the same chargeable act or event is chargeable on different persons as having, or contracting to acquire, different assessable interests, the chargeable act or event shall be treated for the purposes of this Section as different chargeable acts or events related to those different assessable interests.
That is the sort of verbiage we are trying to cut out, because it is a cat's cradle of words and expressions. Later, there is legal shorthand which it is hard even for those with legal training to follow. To understand subsection (8) it is necessary to take into account six other subsections or Clauses. The Amendment would have the great virtue of making the Bill much simpler to understand.
But it has other virtues. The argument in the White Paper and that advanced by my hon. Friend and myself in Standing


Committee was that there would be considerable administrative saving, but as the Clause stands I am by no means convinced that there would be. If I understand it, and I have some difficulty about that, the provision means that the person who is to claim exemption will have to make an application, which means that every claim for exemption will have to be examined in depth.

Mr. K. Robinson: I may be able to help the hon. Gentleman. One of the administrative conveniences of exempting all sales or transactions to a maximum of £1,500 will be that they may be disregarded by the Commission as soon as they are reported. They will automatically be reported as transactions, but then disregarded if the consideration is £1,500 or less.

Mr. Clegg: Will district valuers check on the values if an exemption is claimed?

Mr. Robinson: In the great majority of cases the district valuer will not come into it, because they will be sales of land at the figure of at or below £1,500.

Mr. Clegg: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman. To some extent he has relieved my worries, but the wording speaks of applications.
We want this provision to work well and I still think that it would be better to relate it to stamp duty, because there would be no need for an investigation once a declaration had gone into a conveyance, and that would mean that there was no strain on the administration. That would work because, although solicitors have been attacked, no solicitor would allow a client to swear or sign a declaration which was false.
However, although there will be some administrative savings from this provision, they would be even greater if the Amendment to increase the limit to £5,000 were accepted. I admit that in Committee we were almost picking the figure of £5,000 out of the air as a figure which we thought reasonable.
I take up the point made by the hon. Member for Orpington about a histogram. In debates like this in Committee, when we are studying detail and it is by chance that this subject arises on the Floor of the House and not in Standing Committee, and we are dealing with Amendments of this kind, it would be

advisable if we could have the sort of information which the hon. Member for Orpington has suggested. Our judgment would thereby be the sounder. It would mean much extra work, but it would mean that the Committe would be better informed and thus better able to reach a correct conclusion.
I now come to what I presume will be the Minister's reaction to these Amendments. I believe that he will reject the Amendment providing for a figure of £5,000, as he rejected the last Amendment which we put forward. I find the Minister's attitude hard to understand. He came to his job as Minister for Planning and Land with a reputation of being competent and compassionate. But when people take that office they seem to suffer a sea change. Ex-Ministers constantly rise like Banquo from the benches opposite to look over a Minister's shoulder during a debate. Sometimes they rattle their chains at him, sometimes they give him support.
Something seems to happen to Ministers for Land. I do not know whether it is because of the influence of the Treasury. From being reasonable men for whom the House of Commons has some affection, they become almost adamantine monsters; they remain impervious to reason. We put forward argument after argument, which later they accept, as to a limited extent they have accepted the arguments which we are putting forward on this Amendment.
I cannot understand why they have decided to keep the limit down to £1,500. We have heard about cases of hardship above the figure of £1,500, and I have no doubt that hardship will occur in future, especially with rising inflation.
The Minister, like ourselves, has plucked a figure from the air.

Mr. K. Robinson: indicated dissent.

Mr. Clegg: The Minister indicates dissent. I presume, therefore, that the figure was based largely on the number of transactions involved, or perhaps on the amount of revenue which would be lost. But at the end of the day it is a matter of judgment as to how much is to be the level of exemption.
The Land Commission has sought to use its powers in the Act in a humane way. We have no quarrel with the people in the Land Commission. But it is clear


from the Minister's earlier remarks that the decision which we are now asked to approve is political. If that be so, let us be clear that the decision to hold down the exemption to £1,500 is a political decision taken by Labour politicians in a Labour Government. The onus will rest upon them and upon nobody else.
I feel that in their heart of hearts many hon. Members opposite would like to support this Amendment. I ask the Committee to support these Amendments which would bring justice to many people, which is the job of Parliament.

Mr. Evelyn King: Having listened to this debate and preceeding debates on this subject, it is difficult not to feel sympathy for the Minister. He is in the situation, in which Ministers often find themselves, of trying to defend a Bill which he did not design and which, I suspect, he would not have designed. Yet when he seeks to amend it he is clobbered by the Treasury. I sympathise with him.
Having listened to many debates on various subjects over the years I can hardly recall one in which there was such universal opposition to what was being proposed as we have had in this debate today. Ministers might consider the reason since it is directly germane to this Amendment.
From letters which I have received from the Minister I gathered that he appears to feel that this is an argument between the two sides about the theory of land values. If that were so, there would be a direct conflict between the two sides. But that is not the situation. The reason opposition to what is proposed is almost unanimous is that in every case it is the poor man who is victimised.
8.45 p.m.
I have here one file of my own and two others in my office containing some 40 cases of complaint. I went through those files before the debate. With the exception of one case, the other 39 were from wage earners. This is the point of the Amendment and I hope that the Minister will listen with a degree of sympathy to what is said.
When the Bill was first mooted and debated, the argument was that fortunes were being made in Piccadilly Circus and elsewhere in the development of town

centres. This was the argument upon which the Bill was based, whether or not one read the small print.
The Government have taken a gun to shoot an elephant, but they have missed the elephant and shot a sparrow. This is a fault which it is not unreasonable to recognise. The Government continue to show a lack of imagination for the feelings and aspirations of ordinary working people.
I should like to mention the case of Howell and Arnold, which I referred to the Minister, as an illustration. I am not now concerned with the details of that case, but with the Minister's approach. It concerns a young man engaged to be married who with his fiancée and the help of his future father-in-law spent summer evenings digging the foundations for a house. This is a human situation. For months they worked and laid their own bricks. I will not weary the Committee with the details of the case, but I submitted it to the Minister. He wrote to explain that this was a tax placed upon the "additional value created by the community". That phrase did more to annoy that couple than the tax. Ask a man to show his blistered hands and tell him that the community did it, and it will be realised that a good deal of rubbish is being talked. The right hon. Gentleman's phrase about values created by the community may apply in a city situation, but it does not apply in all situations or in that young man's situation. In fact it hardly applies in any one of the 39 cases I have mentioned. They are rural cases.
I now come to the second phrase which was almost as irritating. I have said that this was a couple engaged to be married building their own home. The Minister's opening phrase is "when they began their venture". When a young couple start to get their home together buying furniture and so on—it is not a venture. It is a natural operation common to the birds of the air. They are nesting. It is not a venture; it is a normal thing which should be rewarded, not penalised.
It is in the small cases that the trouble comes. Once the limit is raised to the point at which the penalties or the tax falls on the development companies, the argument is different. It would not be of this nature. The kind of muddle—I can use no other word—that goes on


between the Land Commission and the Ministry is indescribable.
I should now like to refer to the Lamberts' case which I referred to the Minister. The Lamberts, again, are working people of modest means. They wrote and complained to me. I wrote to the Minister, and on 23rd April he wrote:
Mr. and Mrs. Lambert, however, are not exempt.
I had to write and tell them that this was so. It caused them grief. On 8th May I had another letter from the Minister in which he states:
I announced that the proposal to give relief from levy to a person who was given a piece of land to enable him to build a house for his own occupation would be applied retrospectively. This will include the Lamberts.
On that very day they received a letter from the Land Commission saying that if the money was not paid within seven days they would be sued. That is an example of the muddle that one finds. Within 12 days there were two letters from the Minister, one saying one thing and the other another and a letter from the Land Commission seemingly ignorant of both, saying that if the amount due was not paid they would be prosecuted.
If we can get the strain off the small people and get it on to those cases above £5,000—I do not insist on that figure—or at any rate on to the true developers instead of the humble people we shall return to a measure of justice and we can return to the plain argument about whether land benefits ought to be taxed instead of tonight's argument to which there is only one answer. Young couples about to be married ought not to be punished.

Dame Irene Ward: I support these Amendments, and I propose to quote one case of hardship which, having listened to many of my hon. Friends, I regard as a new line.
In my constituency there was a sea-going engineer. When he married, he bought a house which was then—and this is some considerable time ago—valued at £900. His wife had twins, and when the twins were six his wife left him. He divorced her and asked his married sister whether, while he was at sea—in my part of the world we have many sea-going people, and very proud of them we

are—she would look after the twins. She agreed, the twins went to live with their aunt, and he let his house.
When the twins reached the age of 15 their father died, and the twins were therefore deprived of both their mother and father. Their father left a legal will in favour of his twin children, a boy and a girl, and they continued to live with their aunt.
Quite recently the twins reached the age of 21, and they thought that now they were adult they would like to set up home together, and off they went to their own home. Having arrived there, along came the capital gains tax, or Land Commision, or whoever it is, and said that the value of the house had risen by between £2,000 and £3,000, and, therefore, these children would have to pay up.
I wrote and said that I did not understand the situation because I thought that everybody was allowed to have one home of his own and that therefore this house would be exempt from the tax. I said that I could not understand how this charge could be placed on these two kids who were just entering on life together. But not at all. I received a letter from the Minister saying that this house could not be regarded as the kids' home because they had not lived in it. I find this absolutely frightful, because these poor kids, having been deprived of their mother and father, and having decided to go back to their own home, are faced with this charge.
Would the Minister have said, when the twins were six years old—nobody at that time knew, because the Conservatives were in power, about this tax which was going to be imposed when the Socialists got in—that these twins ought to have lived by themselves? Would he have suggested, when they were 15 and their father died, that they should then have left their aunt's home where they were properly and well cared for and gone back to their own home? Does the Minister suggest that because, at the age of 21, when it seems reasonable for them to do so, these kids are getting excited about having the first home of their own, on the basis that everybody thought they were entitled to one home of their own, they should have to pay this tax because the value of their house has risen while they have been away from it?
I could not believe it. I know all the arguments about how stony-hearted Ministers can become. I have many views about the Treasury, but I could not believe that any Minister could deprive youngsters of that kind of the one thing to which all people have a right—a home of their own—simply because they were too young and had lost both their father and mother and could not be regarded as having had a home because they were not living in it. I did not see how they could be asked to pay.
I wrote again to the Treasury and I received an answer saying that the case was being reconsidered. Will the Minister tell us that the case of these kids will be reconsidered, and will he let it be known that it is the right of people to have one home of their own? What would be the view of a sea-going engineer if he was going to sea—working for his country, and his own livelihood and family, with all the sadness that had come his way—if somebody said to him, "You can go to sea but your children will not be protected"?
This is a disgraceful example, and I am looking forward to hearing the Minister say that the right of every person to have one home of his own will be upheld. Can it be that the Government are going to squeeze everything they can out of these kids, who have lost all they had and are now in an appalling situation?
If the Minister accepted one of our Amendments the position of these children would be saved, and that would be a good thing. I am therefore looking forward to hearing the Minister say, here and now, and without any fussing, that everybody has a right to own one home of his own, and the fact that the parents were not living in the home in this case does not remove the application of this principle and this provision that has been made to protect the rights of the people. I have much pleasure in supporting the Amendment, and I hope that the Government and the Minister will be thoroughly trounced in the Division Lobby.

Mr. K. Robinson: I find it difficult to carry in my mind the details of all the personal cases with which I am involved, and I did not recognise from the details she gave me the case which the hon.

Lady has been describing. However, I did become extremely disturbed when I was personally accused of depriving two orphans of their home.
I have made a few inquiries, and I find that the case is nothing to do with betterment levy or with the Land Commission.

Dame Irene Ward: The capital gains tax.

Mr. Robinson: Yes, the capital gains tax, and I understand that the hon. Lady is in communication with my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary on the matter. Contrary to the hon. Lady's aspirations, the Amendments will not help her constituents one iota.

Dame Irene Ward: If the value of the house rises—

The Chairman: Order. I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. Lady. I allowed her considerable latitude and she went rather outside the terms of the Amendment. I hope that she will not proceed further.

Dame Irene Ward: I am glad about that, Mr. Irving. It was very nice of you. It shows what a strong case I was making. I am delighted that you gave me that latitude. It gives me a little more faith in the House of Commons. I hope that the Minister will follow the lead that you have given.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. K. Robinson: Before coming to the Amendments, and staying within the rules of order, I hope that I can say something about the vexed question of hardship, which, understandably, keeps cropping up.
The hon. Member for Dorset, South (Mr. Evelyn King) took great exception to a phrase which I included in a letter about the value created by the community. I do not think that he misunderstood me. Value created by the community has nothing to do with the value created by a couple who, by their own hands and their own efforts to build a house, are creating something quite different from development value.
That was what I was seeking to define, and that is the value created by the community in giving planning permission for development. They are two separate things, as I think the hon. Gentleman


understands, and I hope that he conveyed this to his outraged constituent.
I do not want to enter into the aspect of hardship in the case mentioned by the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Ridsdale), which obviously devolves on a number of personal circumstances, some of which he outlined. He talked about a betterment levy of about £700 on a sale. It is important to get this into perspective. If the levy were £700, more than £1,000 uncovenanted profit, as a result of the community's actions, was retained by the levy payer, over and above the current use value of the land he sold.
I am not saying that there could be no hardship. He could have spent it without realising that levy was payable, in which case there might be real hardship, but the essence of the matter is that, if the levy were £700, the levy payer retained over £1,000, plus the current use value of the land—

Mr. Ridsdale: Mr. Ridsdalerose—

Mr. Robinson: I will look again at the case, because the hon. Gentleman has raised it in reasonable terms, and refresh my mind.
I listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) who could hardly have heard his hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) on the previous Amendment. His hon. Friend said that I had claimed that the sole purpose of the de minimis provision was to deal with hardship, and I hoped that I had persuaded him that the intention was a good deal wider, although I accept that it would include certain cases of hardship. But the hon. Member accuses me of doing it solely for administrative convenience, with no thought of hardship. That is as far from the truth as was his hon. Friend, at the other extreme.
The Amendments would exempt from levy all chargeable acts and events where the top value is £5,000 or less, instead of £1,500. The exemption limit of £1,500 was chosen with care. That is the answer to the hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg as he will see. I repeat that, in the Government's view, this figure is generous. It exempts well over half the total number of cases at present liable. Anyone who has land worth more than

£1,500 to sell and who, at the same time, is realising development value, is in a not unfortunate position. He is profiting from the actions of the community, which have increased the value of his land, and there is no good reason for exempting him from levy.
In many parts of the country, a plot for a single house will sell for £1,500 or possibly substantially less, so this limit will help many people who sell off part of their garden as a building plot. Most of the cases in which hardship is alleged which come within this category have been in rural areas, where single-house plots will generally fetch a good deal less than £1,500.
Transactions at the level of £5,000 cannot be reasonably described as small transactions. A sale of land at this figure is usually substantial, especially in a rural area, and exempting transactions on that scale from levy would run counter to the whole scheme of the levy. This is no doubt what the Opposition intend. I fully understand that—

Mr. Rossi: Would the right hon. Gentleman not agree, then, from the remarks which he has made, that there is a case for regional variation in this figure?

Mr. Robinson: I accept that the prices of land vary in different parts of the country, but I am giving the reasons why the Government decided that £1,500 was the right figure.
The Opposition do not believe that social justice demands that a proportion of the development value created by the community should return to the community—

Mr. Reginald Eyre: Mr. Reginald Eyre (Birmingham, Hall Green)rose—

Mr. Robinson: I should get on. The hon. Gentleman has not been a very assiduous attender of the debate today.
The Opposition would like to wreck the whole of this scheme of levy. The Government, on the contrary, have reaffirmed in the White Paper the principle of the levy, and the exemption of £1,500 is designed to give as much relief as can reasonably be given without prejudicing the basic principle. In moving this Amendment, the Opposition may have overlooked the fact that, as things stand,


in many transactions there is no question of levy. They may have had in mind, in suggesting £5,000, that sales of small houses should be exempt, but the sale of a house, on which little or no development value is realised, is, of course, already exempt. One of the White Paper's other proposals will increase the number if cases in which there is freedom from levy for owner-occupiers.
From the point of view of administration also, £1,500, we consider, is the right figure. Cases in which the market value was £1,500 or less have accounted for over half the assessments made in the first two years of the levy's operation. I think that the figure is nearer 55 per cent. Those cases have accounted for less than one-tenth of the total amount of levy assessed during the period. An exemption limit of £5,000 would have exempted not 50 or 55 per cent., but 80 per cent.—[HON. MEMEBERS: "Hear, hear."] I thought that that was what they wanted. That would have reduced the amount of levy assessed by about 25 per cent.
I cannot provide the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) with his histogram, but I can tell him that, if he will start from these two figures as a base, on £3,000 the number of cases exempted would have been about 72 per cent. and the amount of levy nearly 18 per cent. If the hon. Gentleman requires further figures, I hope that he will table a Question to me, when I will do my best to help him. As he spoke about members of the Land Commission staff being engaged in unprofitable occupations, I trust that he will not wish to burden them unduly and will, therefore, limit his demands.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about the capital gains set-up. The figures which I quoted when we were debating the previous Amendment showed that the fraction of one-third is the capital gains tax element. On a rough and ready basis, the hon. Gentleman can take that figure as being the one applying all the way through.
Another reason for setting the figure at £1,500 is the need to ensure that the exemption does not provide loopholes leading to avoidance. It may be argued that this difficulty will be overcome by the fact that transactions exempted from levy will be subject to capital gains, but this is not a complete answer. Some

transactions which are subject to levy would be exempt from capital gains, and in the case of a project for development—that is what is known as a Case C under the Land Commission Act—there would be no immediate liability to capital gains tax.
A limit of significantly more than £1,500 would also encourage avoidance of levy by means of fragmentation, a point to which the hon. Member for North Fylde referred. The anti-avoidance provisions should be sufficient—I appreciate that the Opposition would like to make these provisions weaker—to prevent this exemption from being exploited for the purpose of levy avoidance. If the limit were set as high as £5,000 there would be a much stronger incentive to find ways of using it to avoid levy. I do not believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite can be so naive as to think that one could ignore the possibility of avoidance.
This brings me to the Amendments dealing with anti-avoidance, but it might be helpful if, first, I comment on the Liberal Amendment, which seeks to give the Minister of Housing and Local Government power, by order, to increase the amount of top value below which there is to be exemption from levy. The Liberal Amendment is technically defective, but I do not rest my argument on that.
The exemption of £1,500 should, in our view, remain appropriate for a time long enough to rule out the need for a further change to be made quickly. However, and more important, the change introduced by the Clause is a general change affecting the structure of the levy. It is not a technical correction nor an exemption of a small limited class where, perhaps, the granting of exemption by order might be appropriate. As such, it is right that this change should be made by legislation and it is also right that, if there should be a case for changing the figure in future—say, if big changes in land values were to take place—any de minimis change should also be made by legislation.
This is not different from most tax propositions. In income tax, changes of the application of the tax can be made only by legislation. The provisions applying to single person's, married women's allowances, children's relief and so on are


also dealt with in this way and there is no provision for them to be varied by order. The same considerations apply to this general change in betterment levy.
It was for this reason, and because of the complications of the changes which are necessary in capital gains tax, that it was not possible to make satisfactory changes to the levy simply by using exemption orders under Section 63. Nor do I think that it would be appropriate for the Minister of Housing and Local Government to make orders, which have consequential effects in capital gains tax. It is for these reasons that I am unable to advise the Committee to accept the Amendment.
The other Amendments are concerned with the anti-avoidance provisions which, we said in the White Paper, would be incorporated in the Finance Bill in due course; and they are now contained in subsections (2) to (5) of the new provision, which is to be inserted in the Land Commission Act.
As the hon. Member for Hornsey admitted, the Conservative Amendment owes a great deal to the certificate given in conveyances and transfers of land for stamp duty purposes. I have no doubt that that procedure is eminently suited for that purpose, but, in our view, it is not suited to the requirements of betterment levy. The certificate procedure for stamp duty purposes is intended to deal with the splitting up of single transactions between two parties into a series of transactions below the exemption limit, thus avoiding liability to duty.
We are concerned, in respect of the levy, to prevent fragmentation by the seller alone. For example, instead of selling his land to a builder for development, a landowner might sell it in plots to prospective house purchasers at under £1,500 a time, or whatever the figure of limit might be, and thereby pay no levy.
Moreover, while such a certificate procedure is effective for a rate of tax of 1 per cent., which is the stamp duty rate, it could not be effective for levy at a rate of 40 per cent. We therefore do not regard this proposal as an effective method of countering the dangers of avoidance. Further, the Amendment appears to overlook—or, at any rate, to disregard—the fact that it is not only transactions between parties which the

new provision seeks to aggregate. Any leviable event—that is, an event which would have given rise to levy, apart from these provisions—is aggregated, and this includes development under what is called a Case C rent, an aspect for which the Amendment makes no provision.
In two ways the Amendment is more restrictive than are the Government's proposals, but it would be so very ineffective against avoidance that I almost hesitate to mention them. First of all, the Amendment does not restrict aggregation to the same financial year. That would mean that transactions falling in different financial years could be aggregated, and exemption lost in consequence, if that transaction were part of a series of transactions.
Secondly, it does not restrict aggregation of transactions to those which, apart from the new exemption, would have produced a liability to levy. Let me give an example. A person who sold four houses without development value and one plot of land for £1,500 with development value to the one purchaser would, under the Amendment, find his transactions aggregated. This would not be the case under the Government's proposals: he would get the full benefit of the exemption on the sale of a plot of land.
But the main reason for rejecting the Amendment is that it would leave the levy open to very easy and wide-scale avoidance. I hope that that was not the intention of those who tabled it, but in the light of some of the extravagant phrases and threats that have been used by hon. Members opposite in regard to the Land Commission and the betterment levy, it is not easy for me altogether to put aside such suspicion.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: When the Minister finishes a speech in that manner he cannot expect a very polite reply. In this sort of situation we are bound to choose an arbitrary figure, and we are now completely satisfied that we were correct in seeking to increase the limit from £1,500 to £5,000. The Minister has given us the justification for it.
The right hon. Gentleman said that if we had a figure of £5,000 we would relieve the Land Commission of 80 per cent. of the cases and 25 per cent. of the value. When one takes the two together, that is


a complete condemnation of the whole system. We have a system which is collecting 25 per cent. of the value out of 80 per cent. of the cases, and if we can remove that 80 per cent. of cases we shall remove not only the hardships but the administrative inconvenience.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) asked the Minister to give his reasons for the choice of £1,500. The right hon. Gentleman replied that the figure was chosen with care; that it was a generous figure; that it exempted over half the number of cases. But I still do not understand whether that care was directed to asking the Commission what would be the figure which would remove 50 per cent. of the cases from the Commission; that is to say, whether the figure was chosen for administrative convenience or as being the right value for a plot of land for a reasonably sized house.
The argument that has been put forward by the Minister today and previously is that £1,500 is reasonable for a plot for a reasonable house, but he said only that it was reasonable in many parts of the country. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey pointed out, one will not get a plot for £1,500 for a normal family house anywhere in the South-East or in a good many other places. We therefore have this strange mixture of an exemption which will exempt a plot for, say, a medium-size house in the Midlands, or a cottage or a small house in the North. That is the sort of exemption we are asked to approve. It is certainly less than the plot value for a reasonable house in many areas.
I am rather surprised that this was not put forward more on a reasonable basis. A more reasonable figure could have been found if it had been varied throughout the country. It is quite

Division No. 215.]
AYES
[9.20 p.m.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Blaker, Peter
Costain, A. P.


Astor, John
Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Currie, G. B. H.


Awdry, Daniel
Brewis, John
Dalkeith, Earl of


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Brinton, Sir Tatton
Dance, James


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.)


Balniel, Lord
Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N &amp; M)
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Buck, Antony (Colchester)
Dean, Paul


Batsford, Brian
Bullus, Sir Eric
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)


Bell, Ronald
Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)
Doughty, Charles


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Chichester-Clark, R.
Drayson, G. B.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Clark, Henry
Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Clegg, Walter
Emery, Peter


Biffen, John
Cooke, Robert
Errington, Sir Eric


Black, Sir Cyril
Corfield, F. V.
Eyre, Reginald

certain that £1,500 is not the correct limit for hardship in these small cases.

This issue should not be decided entirely on administrative convenience, but at least one of the advantages of exemption should be a saving in administration. If I correctly understood the Minister's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg), the Minister said that there would not be anything like applications for the exemption, that the Commission would merely look at the transaction and say, "It is a transaction for £1,500. We need not look at it any more".

If that is so, the whole of the Minister's argument about evasion and loopholes falls, because if the Commission is to take a document on its face value of £1,500 the Minister might just as well adopt our simple and well known form of the certificate for value used for stamp duty. This is a tried system, backed by the deterrent of a penalty. It would provide the Commission with sufficient information which it could trust, as one trusts the certificate for value for Stamp Duty, and cut out an enormous amount of administration.

The Minister is pigheaded over not facing the facts. It is stupid not to face the facts as we have seen them in all the cases of hardship which have arisen. The figure of exemption now proposed by the Government has come forward with a lot of ballyhoo. It is so little and so late that it will not cope either with the cases of hardship or with the administrative burden. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will take this into the Lobby.

Question put, That the Amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 161, Noes 209.

Farr, John
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Fortescue, Tim
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Foster, Sir John
Longden, Gilbert
Ridsdale, Julian


Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Lubbock, Eric
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross &amp; Crom'ty)
Royle, Anthony


Glover, Sir Douglas
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain
Scott-Hopkins, James


Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
McMaster, Stanley
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Goodhart, Philip
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Silvester, Frederick


Goodhew, Victor
McNair-Wilson Patrick (New Forest)
Sinclair, Sir George


Gower, Raymond
Maddan, Martin
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Grant-Ferris, R.
Maginnis, John E.
Speed, Keith


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Marten, Neil
Stainton, Keith


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Mawby, Ray
Stodart, Anthony


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Harrison, Col, Sir Harwood (Eye)
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Temple, John M.


Hastings, Stephen
Monro, Hector
Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret


Hawkins, Paul
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Tilney, John


Hay, John
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Waddington, David


Heseltine, Michael
Murton, Oscar
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Higgins, Terence L.
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


Hiley, Joseph
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Hill, J. E. B.
Nott, John
Walters, Dennis


Hirst, Geoffrey
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Ward, Dame Irene


Holland, Philip
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)
Weatherill, Bernard


Hooson, Emlyn
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Hordern, Peter
Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Hornby, Richard
Percival, Ian
Wiggin, A. W.


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Iremonger, T. L.
Pink, R. Bonner
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.


Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Pounder, Rafton
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Kershaw, Anthony
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Wright, Esmond


Kimball, Marcus
Prior, J. M. L.
Wylie, N. R.


King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Pym, Francis



Kitson, Timothy
Quennell, Miss J. M.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Knight, Mrs. Jill
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James
Mr. Jasper More and


Lane, David
Rees-Davies, W. R.
Mr. Anthony Grant.




NOES


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Dell, Edmund
Henig, Stanley


Anderson, Donald
Dempsey, James
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret


Archer, Peter
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Hilton, W. S.


Ashley, Jack
Dickens, James
Hooley, Frank


Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Driberg, Tom
Horner, John


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Dunnett, Jack
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)
Hoy, James


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
Huckfield, Leslie


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Eadie, Alex
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn Anglesey)


Barnett, Joel
Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Baxter, William
Ellis, John
Hughes, Roy (Newport)


Beaney, Alan
English, Michael
Hunter, Adam


Bence, Cyril
Ensor, David
Hynd, John


Bidwell, Sydney
Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Irvine, Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)


Binns, John
Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)


Blackburn, F.
Fernyhough, E.
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir Eric (Islington, E.)
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)


Booth, Albert
Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)


Boston, Terence
Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)


Brooks, Edwin
Ford, Ben
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Forrester, John
Judd, Frank


Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Fowler, Gerry
Kelley, Richard


Buchan, Norman
Fraser, John (Norwood)
Kenyon, Clifford


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Freeson, Reginald
Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Gardner, Tony
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)


Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Ginsburg, David
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)


Carmichael, Neil
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Lawson, George


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Gregory, Arnold
Leadbitter, Ted


Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Grey, Charles (Durham)
Lee, John (Reading)


Conlan, Bernard
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Loughlin, Charles


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Luard, Evan


Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)


Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Hamling, William
McBride, Neil


Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Hannan, William
MacColl, James


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
MacDermot, Niall


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
McGuire, Michael


Davies, Rt. Hn. Harold (Leek)
Hattersley, Roy
McKay, Mrs. Margaret


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Hazell, Bert
Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)


Delargy, Hugh
Heffer, Eric S.
Mackie, John







Mackintosh, John P.
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Spriggs, Leslie


McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Padley, Walter
Taverne, Dick


McNamara, J. Kevin
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Thomson, Rt. Hn. George


MacPherson, Malcolm
Paget, R. T.
Thorton, Ernest


Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Palmer, Arthur
Tinn, James


Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Tuck, Raphaell


Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Park, Trevor
Urwin, T. W.


Malilalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Varley, Eric G.


Mapp, Charles
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Marquand, David
Pavitt, Laurence
Walden, Brian (All Saints)


Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)
Wallace, George


Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.
Watkins, David (Consett)


Mendelson, John
Price, William (Rugby)
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)


Mikardo, Ian
Rankin, John
Weitzman, David


Millan, Bruce
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)
Wellbeloved, James


Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)
White, Mrs. Eirene


Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Robertson, John (Paisley)
Whitlock, William


Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P'c'as)
Wilkins, W. A.


Morris, John (Aberavon)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Moyle, Roland
Roebuck, Roy
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Newens, Stan
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)


Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip
Sheldon, Robert
Willis, Rt. Hn. George


Ogden, Eric
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Oram, Albert E.
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)
Woof, Robert


Orbach, Maurice
Silverman, Julius



Orme, Stanley
Skeffington, Arthur
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Oswald, Thomas
Slater, Joseph
Mr. Ernest G. Perry and



Small, William
Mr. Joseph Harper.

Mr. K. Robinson: I beg to move Amendment No. 57, in page 50, line 26, leave out from 'or' to 'is' in line 27 and insert:
'his or her wife or husband'.

The Chairman: We may discuss at the same time Amendment No. 15, in page 52, line 1, leave out subsection (9).

Mr. Robinson: I have already explained the reasons why it is necessary to have anti-avoidance provisions in this legislation. I hope that I have convinced the Opposition that one cannot introduce exemptions without trying to ensure that they are not misused to enable people who should pay levy to avoid paying it. There is, however, one point at which, on consideration, I think that we have made the anti-avoidance provisions rather too restrictive.
In dealing with the aggregation of separate chargeable acts or events within a financial year, we have covered not only transactions carried out by the applicant for relief but also those carried out by a person connected with the applicant. That is subsection (2). In subsection (9), we define the word "connected" by reference to Schedule 13 of the Land Commission Act. But that definition goes very wide, covering not only mothers and fathers, grandmothers and grandfathers, but brothers, sisters, sons, daughters and so forth, so that in a normal family there might easily be as many as 20 or 30 connected persons.
It is not our purpose to try to aggregate for the purposes of exemption transactions carried out by any one of that wide range of persons. Moreover, there would be considerable administrative difficulties. On further consideration, it seemed to me that the objective could be achieved by simply providing that husbands and wives are connected persons, while keeping the provision already in the subsection as drafted, that a person cannot avoid levy by getting someone else to act on his behalf in a transaction which ought to come within the aggregation provisions.
The Amendment achieves this very simply by substituting for the reference to a person connected with the applicant a reference to the applicant's wife or husband. This removes the need for subsection (9) and we have the slightly odd situation when the Chancellor's name appears at the top of the list of names of the Amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod), which we are very glad to adopt. In proposing this change, I have made it clear that it is the Government's intention not to be unduly restrictive but merely to incorporate the minimum anti-avoidance provisions.
When the original Land Commission Bill was going through, my predecessors took the view that it would be impossible to have a de minimis provision without opening the door to wide-scale avoidance. The proposals we are now putting


forward get round this difficulty, but I must emphasise that the Government are prepared to see this provision written into the scheme only if they are satisfied that it is not being exploited as a means of avoiding the levy in cases where it is rightly due. If it turns out that we have not been strict enough and the provisions are being avoided, we shall not hesitate to bring forward further provisions to check avoidance.

Mr. Clegg: The Committee will be delighted to hear that husbands and wives are connected persons, and we are further delighted to hear that the Minister has accepted the deletion of subsection (9), as proposed by this side of the Committee. In so far as this eases things, we welcome it. I would just add that to link husbands' and wives' land transactions in this way is not right in principle. Wives should be able to hold land in their own right and be treated as separate persons.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. K. Robinson: I beg to move Amendment No. 58, in clause 36, page 51, line 14, leave out from 'on' to 'different' in line 15 and insert 'two or more'.
This Amendment puts right a small defect in subsection (5) of the proposed new Section 59A. The arguments for it are somewhat complicated and the hour is late. I hope that if I give the assurance to hon. Gentlemen opposite that the effect of this provision is in favour of the subject, they will accept this at face value.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: No. 59, in page 51, line 44, after '1967', insert:
'or the Case F General (Scotland) Regulations 1967'.

No. 15, in page 52, line 1, leave out subsection (9).—[Mr. K. Robinson.]

Question proposed, That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.

Mr. John Farr: I am sorry to have to make some remarks at this stage, but I was detained in Committee upstairs when one or two points arose relating to some Amendments tabled by my hon. Friends and myself. Although this Committee has reached a decision on these Amendments, relating to the value

of £1,500, instead of our Amendment of £5,000, and to the date, there are one or two points I want to raise which, even at this late stage might persuade the Minister to think again and decide that this Clause should not stand part of the Bill.

The Chairman: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not seeking to discuss again decisions which the Committee have already taken. It will be out of order if he is seeking to reverse those decisions.

Mr. Farr: I understand that, Mr. Irving. I am merely seeking to speak to the Question, That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill. I am suggesting that if I have the opportunity of putting forward some new reasons why this Clause should not stand part of the Bill, I might possibly be within the realms of order.
The points which I wished to raise earlier on the Clause are not matters which I have learnt in Committee or in debate in the House. They are experiences which I have met in my constituency. I would not like the Clause to pass without the Minister becoming aware of some of the cases of human tragedy and hardship which will occur should the Clause reach the Statute Book in its present form.
I know from some of the remarks I heard towards the end of the debate on the date on which the Clause becomes effective—5th April, 1969—that many of my hon. Friends put cogent reasons to the Minister, which he appeared to appreciate although he declined to withdraw his support of the Clause. One or two of the points which might yet be relevant and might persuade the Minister to have second thoughts on this damaging Clause concern the date of its application.
The Bill contains a proposal that the change which the Government intend to make should take effect from 5th April, 1969. Reasons have been given why the date should be earlier. I hope to be able to put one or two human cases of which I am aware of real tragedy of constituents of mine who are in a desperate situation because they do not know where to find the money to pay the levy which has been assessed upon them. They need not find themselves in that position if only the Minister had accepted our


Amendment to alter the date to 1967 or, alternatively, decided that the Clause should not stand part of the Bill.
A typical example which, I hope, will persuade the Minister to change his mind concerns an old-age pensioner couple in my constituency. They own a vegetable plot, which they bought some years ago with some savings for a very modest figure. The purpose of buying the plot was that if they had their capital tied up in it, after a number of years they would have a chance to sell the plot and give themselves enough capital to put down the deposit to buy the rented house in which they were living.
They bought the plot of land for £258 and sold it in 1968 for £520. Straight away, they put that down as an initial deposit for their lifelong ambition—to buy the, not modern, but comfortable semi-detached house in which they were living. You can imagine their concern, Mr. Irving—it has prompted me almost to demand that I be heard tonight—when, after they had paid the deposit, the Land Commission assessed them for levy of £122. As far as I am aware these people are not in receipt of any social security pension other than the old-age pension. They do not have £122. Can the right hon. Gentleman suggest a solution which would overcome the difficulties and help to meet this case?
There is another cogent reason why the Clause should not stand part of the Bill. There is another couple in my constituency who are old-age pensioners of very modest means. The wife is in very ill health and needs a certain amount of extras and little luxuries in life, perhaps a little extra food, which they can ill-afford on their pension but which the husband would like to be able to provide for the wife. They had a garden to their house which they sold fairly recently at £1 per square yard, the garden being 948 square yards. They have been assessed for a levy of £335 4s. on this transaction.
The man is in a quandary. He wants to pay the levy if he is able to do so, but he put aside the proceedings of the sale of the land to provide his wife with a holiday and certain extras in an endeavour to put her on her feet and make her healthy once more. Is that the sort of couple the Act was designed to attack?

Are they the sort of people who ought to pay the penalties?
9.45 p.m.
I happen to have had the misfortune to serve on both Standing Committees which considered the Land Commission Act. I was on the abortive Bill which began in 1964 and on the second which we saw through to a conclusion in 1966. Many of my colleagues in that Committee, many of whom are present tonight, warned the Government time and again that these were the sort of people who would be hit, but the Government rejected our Amendments which were designed to protect those who were weak and unable to protect themselves. The Goveriment rejected those Amendments out of hand, said that we were simply flying a kite, and that our Amendments were fictions of our imagination. But as we have seen, and as hon. Members opposite, too, have probably seen, there was much truth in what we said.
I have many other examples which I may bring to the Minister's attention in the hope of persuading him to change his mind. My constituency is one of the biggest in the country and the population is continually on the move. It is virtually to the south of the City of Leicester, a suburban dormitory area with tremendous development continually on the go. The population has increased by about 3,000 adults a year over the last 10 years and this has given rise to great problems in connection with the Land Commission and its impact on my constituency.
Another example concerns a young working couple who decided that, instead of trying to save up to buy a house, they would build for themselves. The couple were married recently and the man's father-in-law gave them a plot of land on which to build a house. Instead of sitting back and renting a house, or spending evenings watching television, the couple put their savings into bricks and mortar and the young man got down to building a house himself. He is the sort of person the country needs. By dint of his own endeavours and a considerable amount of work, he has something to show for his spare-time occupation, namely, a new house.
Is that the sort of person whom the Government desire to penalise? They are only a working couple, yet the first


letter they received when they moved into their new house was an assessment from the Land Commission for £450 as a backhanded reward from the Government for their efforts.
I do not suppose that there is a hope that the Minister will change his mind. Nevertheless, I should not like to see the Clause accepted without the Minister being aware of the details of the three cases which I have outlined. I should not like to see grave injustice being done to ordinary people by the Minister's inaction.

Mr. Peter Walker: We have listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) with great interest. His points would have been met had our Amendments been accepted. I can understand his regret that he was not present during the debate which took place on this matter.
I shall ask my hon. Friends not to vote against this Clause. It would have been a better Clause had our Amendments been accepted, but we feel that a vote against it would mean that the same situation would obtain in future as has obtained in the past, and would run counter to the interests of those who wish to remove some of the dangers of the effects of Land Commission operations.
Although I sympathise with my hon. Friend, I must ask my hon. Friends to support the Clause.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 38

BASE VALUE OF OWNER-OCCUPIED DWELLING HOUSE

Mr. Peter Walker: I beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 54, line 41, leave out from 'paragraph' to 'if' in line 42 and insert:
'5 above "the market value of the relevant interest" shall be substituted for all the words after "equal to"'.
This Amendment may appear complicated, but it is simple in its effects in that it removes from betterment levy the owner-occupied house. There is no need for me to recite the many hardship cases which are involved, since we have heard about them in earlier discussions.
I refer to one particular case which has been previously mentioned by the Minister. The Minister has said that so far an assessment has not been made by the Land Commission. This case has been given prominence in both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express. It involves a Mr. Dutt, who sold his house for £15,000. He now expects, if an assessment made by the district valuer is upheld, to pay a betterment levy of £1,160.
Mr. Dutt's property occupies only five-eights of an acre, and the new owner has give a written assurance that he does not intend to carry out development. The borough council has indicated that any application for planning consent will be refused. Despite these facts, Mr. Dutt is to be charged, or could be charged if the district valuer's assessment is upheld, a betterment levy.
This shows the absurdity of the effects of the Bill on the owner-occupier. The Minister has quoted in his defence the example of the man with a large estate with large gardens consisting of many acres which may be developed as a housing estate. Later in the Bill we hope to move Amendments to establish one acre as the limit which would apply.
The Committee would be wise to agree that owner-occupiers with an acre or less of ground should be totally exempt from betterment levy. If this is not achieved, many owner-occupiers will remain in an uncertain position.
The Minister has said that perhaps eventually Mr. Dutt may find that he will not have to pay betterment levy. It is appalling that an owner-occupier who has sold his house for £15,000 to somebody who does not wish to develop it, with the local authority having refused planning permission, must go through months of doubt before he knows whether or not he will have to pay betterment levy. Therefore, I suggest that the Minister and the Committee would be wise to support this simple Amendment which seeks to exclude the owner-occupier from the provisions of the betterment levy.

Mr. Murton: I should like to reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) said about the owner-occupier. So far this evening I have refrained from quoting actual cases, but I am sure that the


Committee will bear with me if I mention one, because this strikes at the root of the problem which we are discussing.
I have in my constituency an old-age pensioner aged 76. He has recently moved into the Borough of Poole from another part of the country, Waltham Abbey, Essex. He wrote to me, saying:
I was contacted by the Greater London Council to purchase our seven-roomed detached house and quarter-acre of land in a very beautiful condition"—
he underlines the words "very beautiful condition"—
for demolition to make a road into a council estate of 12,000 houses (to be built).
I imagine that he means 1,200 houses. Nevertheless, he continues:
We did not want to leave Waltham Abbey, but, being afraid of the compulsory purchase order which they hand out, we settled for £8,000 in November, 1967.
He wrote to me in considerable distress. He has bought a bungalow in Poole—I know from the address that it must have cost practically all the money which he obtained by what one can only call the forced sale of his original house—and he is now faced with a demand by the Land Commission for a considerable sum by way of betterment levy.
This has been going on for some time. He had the good sense to consult a solicitor, who has been in negotiation about his case, and eventually he wrote to me. I wrote asking whether he allowed a compulsory purchase order to be made. He replied:
No; but the threat of it was in my mind as the negotiations were going on for two or more years.
It is disgraceful that a man of 76 years of age, living with his wife perfectly happily in a house for most of his life, should have the threat of a compulsory purchase order hanging over his head for two years, with a great local authority breathing down the back of his neck wanting to destroy his house, possibly for the benefit of an estate which it intended to build, and then, when he eventually gives way, accepts what he considers a good price, moves away and spends the money settling down again, should be faced with having to pay a levy.
I instance this as one of many cases which hon. Members on both sides of the Committee could produce to reinforce my hon. Friend's argument and to show

how important it is that the Amendment should be accepted by the Government, even at this late hour and after the obduracy which they have shown on previous occasions to exempt the owner-occupier from this dreadful threat which hangs over his head. Some people call it a tax, others call it a levy, but in any event it means taking money out of the pockets of people who can ill-afford to spare it.

[Sir RONALD RUSSELL in the Chair]

Mr. K. Robinson: As the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) rightly said, the Amendment would give complete exemption from levy to residential owner-occupiers on sales of their main residences within the limitation of size and prices. The argument that all sales or leases of owner-occupied dwelling houses should be exempt from betterment levy has been raised on many occasions.

It being Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee report Progress.

Orders of the Day — BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered.
That the Proceedings on the Motion relating to Members' Interests (Declaration) may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour though opposed.—[Mr. K. Robinson.]

Orders of the Day — FINANCE BILL

Again considered in Committee.

Question again proposed, That the Amendment be made.

Mr. K. Robinson: I was saying that the argument that all sales or leases of owner-occupied dwelling-houses should be exempt from the betterment levy has been raised on a number of occasions. The reasons against this are set out in paragraph 8 of the White Paper. I think that much of the pressure for this change is based on a misconception of the scope as well as the purpose of the levy.
In normal circumstances there is no development value realised on the sale or lease of a dwelling-house. The figures illustrate this very well. In the first two


years of the Land Commission's operations, even without the modifications now being introduced, there has been a liability to levy in only about 1,000 cases of the sale or lease of private dwelling-houses where the house itself was being sold. This compares with hundreds of thousands of sales of houses each year. It can be seen, therefore, that betterment levy does not normally apply on the sale of a house which is to continue to be used as a house.
Where the levy was intended to apply, and will still apply, is where substantial development value is being realised. There is no reason why a large house in extensive grounds sold at a high profit, perhaps for demolition and the building of blocks of flats, should not be liable for levy just because it is owner-occupied. There have been many such cases in urban areas where large sums of development value have been realised, and there is no case whatever for exempting such cases on any general argument for giving protection to owner-occupiers of residential property.
It has nothing to do with encouraging or discouraging home ownership. What the levy is doing is taxing a windfall gain which has resulted from the actions of the community, which is quite unconnected with the fact that property sold may have been owner-occupied at the time of the sale. The usual arguments about the need to encourage home ownership and to provide tax relief for home owners therefore do not apply to the very small group of owner-occupiers who are profiting from realising development value on the sale of their houses.
What the Government have done in this Clause is to deal with the marginal cases. The exemption of sales of market value of £1,500 or less has provided an exemption for owner-occupiers selling off parts of their garden below this figure. This Clause helps the case of the small and medium-sized house which is being sold and where, although perhaps it is being sold for continued use as a house, there is a small amount of development value in the sale.
The case of Mr. Dutt has been quoted again. I hope that the hon. Member for Worcester will join me in urging Mr. Dutt to negotiate with the district valuer,

because the facts of the case are not quite as simple as they have been published. It may turn out that in the end no levy is payable. I understand that Mr. Dutt has sold the house to a small developer. I know it is said that there is no prospect of immediate development, but, nevertheless, the district valuer has issued a preliminary view, and I suggest that negotiations should now take place.

Mr. Murton: The right hon. Member mentioned the phrase "windfall gain". How would that affect my Mr. Wright, from Waltham Abbey, who was virtually forced out of his house?

Mr. Robinson: I took the hon. Members' complaint on that issue to be more against the law of compulsory purchase than against betterment levy. Perhaps it was against a combination of the two. Anyhow, under the Clause, providing that the residence does not exceed one quarter of an acre in extent and £10,000 in value there is no liability to levy unless the development value element exceeds the current use value by the 20 per cent. margin rather than the normal 10 per cent. A man with a house with a current use value of £8,000 who sells it at £9,500—the difference being due to planning permission, or the prospect of it; using the house as an office, or even building another house in the garden—will now have no betterment levy to pay on the sale, because the sale price will be on the higher base value which the Clause provides.
We think that the two provisions together will effectively deal with the small marginal cases of development value realised by owner-occupiers. For the reasons that I have given there is no cause for complete exemption for owner-occupiers, and I ask the House to reject the Amendment.

Mr. Graham Page: If the house owner is exempt from capital gains tax on the sale of his house, what logical, moral, social or fiscal justification can there be for imposing betterment levy when he sells the house? The liability is still retained by the Bill, although it professes to make a concession. All it does is to make the sale or lease of a home better for the levy payer than would be the case if he were selling any other property by 40 per cent. of a sum equal to one-fifth of the current use value of the home.


That is the sort of complication which seems to delight the Ministry but infuriates the public. It does nothing for the marginal case. Consider what it costs in administration—and to what end? Suppose that we exempted all these cases—there were only 1,000 of them over two years.
This, from the Minister's own mouth, is the strongest support for the Amendment and for removing the home entirely from the threat of the levy.

Mr. Costain: I want to make only one point. The Minister does not yet seem to appreciate the effect of the levy on owner-occupier houses. Cannot he appreciate that when there is a risk of a levy the vendor will add this to the price? I do not want to quote cases of old-age pensioners, or other people who will suffer hardship; I merely refer to it as a straightforward commercial proposition. When a person is about to sell his house he wants to know whether or not it will be subject to levy.

Division No. 216.]
AYES
[10.9 p.m.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Farr, John
Lubbock, Eric


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Fortescue, Tim
Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross &amp; Crom'ty)


Astor, John
Foster, Sir John
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
McMaster, Stanley


Awdry, Daniel
Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
McNair-Wilson, Michael


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Glover, Sir Douglas
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Maddan, Martin


Balniel, Lord
Goodhart, Philip
Maginnis, John E.


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Goodhew, Victor
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest


Batsford, Brian
Gower, Raymond
Marten, Neil


Bell, Ronald
Grant, Anthony
Mawby, Ray


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Grant-Ferris, R.
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Mills, Peter (Torrington)


Biffen, John
Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)


Black, Sir Cyril
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
More, Jasper


Blaker, Peter
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)


Body, Richard
Hastings, Stephen
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Hawkins, Paul
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Brewis, John
Hay, John
Murton, Oscar


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Heald, Rt. Hn Sir Lionel
Nicholls, Sir Harmar


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Heseltine, Michael
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N &amp; M)
Higgins, Terence L.
Nott, John


Buck, Antony (Colchester)
Hiley, Joseph
Osborn, John (Hallam)


Bullus, Sir Eric
Hill, J. E. B.
Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)


Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)
Holland Philip
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Chichester-Clark, R.
Hooson, Emlyn
Page, Jonn (Harrow, W.)


Clark, Henry
Hordern, Peter
Pardoe, John


Clegg, Walter
Hornby, Richard
Percival, Ian


Cooke, Robert
Hunt, John
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Corfield, F. V.
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Pink, R. Bonner


Costain, A. P.
Iremonger, T. L.
Pounder, Rafton


Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Crouch, David
Jopling, Michael
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Currie, G. B. H.
Kershaw, Anthony
Prior, J. M. L.


Dalkeith, Earl of
Kimball, Marcus
Pym, Francis


Dance, James
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Davidson, James (Aberdeenshire, W.)
Kitson, Timothy
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Lane, David
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Drayson, G. B.
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Ridsdale, Julian


Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Emery, Peter
Longden, Gilbert
Royle, Anthony

The Minister goes on quoting figures saying that X number are not subject to levy—but who knows that they are not? The public are now convinced that the Government will take every ounce of cash they possibly can, and they will not sell their houses. I know of two cases where houses have been kept vacant. If the Minister will not accept the Amendment, will he accept the alternative, and provide that anybody who is about to sell his house can go to the Land Commission and obtain a certificate to the effect that development levy will not be charged? Will that give him a better idea of the way in which to increase house availability? This Government have made such a mess of the housing programme that they should do something to improve it.

Question put, That the Amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 165, Noes 215.

Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)
Tilney, John
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Silvester, Frederick
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.
Wiggin, A. W.


Sinclair, Sir George
van Straubenzee, W. R.
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.


Smith, John (London &amp; W'minster)
Waddington, David
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Speed, Keith
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)
Woodnutt, Mark


Steel, David (Roxburgh)
Walker, Peter (Worcester)
Wright, Esmond


Stodart, Anthony
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek
Wylie, N. R.


Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.
Walters, Dennis



Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)
Ward, Dame Irene
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)
Weatherill, Bernard
Mr. Reginald Eyre and


Temple, John M.
Wells, John (Maidstone)
Mr. Hector Monro.


Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy






NOES


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Ginsburg, David
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)


Alldritt, Walter
Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)


Anderson, Donald
Gregory, Arnold
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)


Archer, Peter
Grey, Charles (Durham)
Mapp, Charles


Ashley, Jack
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Marquand, David


Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Mendelson, John


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Hamling, William
Mikardo, Ian


Barnett, Joel
Hannan, William
Millan, Bruce


Beaney, Alan
Harper, Joseph
Miller, Dr. M. S.


Bence, Cyril
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)


Bidwell, Sydney
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)


Binns, John
Hattersley, Roy
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)


Bishop, E. S.
Hazell, Bert
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Heffer, Eric S.
Morris, John (Aberavon)


Booth, Albert
Henig, Stanley
Moyle, Roland


Boston, Terence
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Neal, Harold


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Hilton, W. S.
Newens, Stan


Brooks, Edwin
Hooley, Frank
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Horner, John
Ogden, Eric


Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Oram, Albert E.


Buchan, Norman
Hoy, James
Orbach, Maurice


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Huckfield, Leslie
Orme, Stanley


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Oswald, Thomas


Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)


Cant, R. B.
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Padley, Walter


Carmichael, Neil
Hunter, Adam
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Hynd, John
Paget, R. T.


Conlan, Bernard
Irvine, Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Palmer, Arthur


Crawshaw, Richard
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Park, Trevor


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Crossman, Rt. Hn, Richard
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)


Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Pavitt, Laurence


Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.


Davies, Rt. Hn. Harold (Leek)
Judd, Frank
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Kelley, Richard
Price, William (Rugby)


Delargy, Hugh
Kenyon, Clifford
Robert's, Albert (Normanton)


Dell, Edmund
Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy



Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)




Robertson, John (Paisley)


Dempsey, James
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P's'as)


Dewar, Donald
Lawson, George
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Leadbitter, Ted
Roebuck, Roy


Dickens, James
Lee, Rt. Hn, Frederick (Newton)
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Driberg, Tom
Lee, John (Reading)
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)


Dunnett, Jack
Lestor, Miss Joan
Sheldon, Robert


Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Eadie, Alex
Loughlin, Charles
Silverman, Julius


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Luard, Evan
Skeffington, Arthur


Ellis, John
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Slater, Joseph


English, Michael
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Small, William


Ensor, David
McBride, Neil
Spriggs, Leslie


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
McCann, James
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Fernyhough, E.
MacColl, James
Taverne, Dick


Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir Eric (Islington, E.)
MacDermot, Niall
Thomson, Rt. Hn. George


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
McGuire, Michael
Thornton, Ernest


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Tinn, James


Ford, Ben
Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)
Tuck, Raphael


Forrester, John
Mackintosh, John P.
Urwin, T. W.


Fowler, Gerry
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Varley, Eric G.


Fraser, John (Norwood)
McNamara, J. Kevin
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Freeson, Reginald
MacPherson, Malcolm



Gardner, Tony
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Walden, Brian (All Saints)







Walker, Harold (Doncaster)
Whitlock, William
Winnick, David


Wallace, George
Wilkins, W. A.
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Watkins, David (Consett)
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)
Woof, Robert


Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)



Wellbeloved, James
Williams, W. T. (Warrington)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


White, Mrs. Eirene
Willis, Rt. Hn. George
Mr. Ioan L. Evans and




Mr. Ernest G. Perry.

Mr. Rossi: I beg to move Amendment No. 19, in page 55, line 5, leave out '£10,000' and insert '£15,000'.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Ronald Russell): I suggest that it would be convenient for the Committee to discuss, at the same time the following Amendments: Nos. 20, 21, 22, 26, 27 and 29.

Mr. Rossi: That is convenient, Sir Ronald, since the object of this group of Amendments is to extend the number of cases covered by the meagre concession provided by the Clause to include all houses of a value of £15,000 or less.
I call in aid the arguments which were used earlier about the regional differences that exist in house prices. The figure of £10,000 may cover the small and medium-type of house to which the Minister wishes to give this concession in various parts of the country, such as the Midlands and the North-East, but when one considers house prices in the South-East, where values are appreciably greater, one sees that £15,000 would be more equitable.
For example, one need only think of the Highgate part of the Minister's constituency. I am not sure that £15,000 would go far in the Fitzroy Farm area. The owners of houses there would no doubt feel justified to have this exemption extended, particularly when one compares the type of house that they would be selling with an identical house in another part of the country.
A strong case exists for a differential. Perhaps the Minister has not yet considered this aspect. If justice is to be done between different parts of the country, he should increase the figure from £10,000 to at least £15,000 and so help the people in the South-East.

Mr. K. Robinson: The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) referred to my constituency and, in doing so, chose the most expensive part of it. I assure him that even in my constituency there are large areas where houses sell regularly for sums substantially below £10,000.
In tabling this series of Amendments to the £10,000 limit hon. Gentlemen opposite have overlooked the fact that it is not a question of either getting relief under the Clause or getting no relief at all. The Clause increases the addition to current use value allowed in the calculation of base value from 10 per cent. to 20 per cent. The 10 per cent. addition, to which the Opposition have not paid sufficient attention, already provides a substantial measure of relief.
On the current use value aspect, already there must be a 10 per cent. increase before there is any liability to levy. On a house with a current use value of £12,000 and a market value of £15,000 the 10 per cent. addition reduces the net development value from £3,000 to £1,800 and the levy from the £1,200 which it would have been without that provision to £720.
Are hon. Gentlemen opposite suggesting that in the circumstances any further relief is needed? Indeed, they are suggesting the giving of more relief, not because there is any argument in equity for such relief but because they oppose the levy in principle. I must, therefore, ask the Committee to reject the Amendment.
The Government's intention has been to give some relief to owner-occupiers of small and medium-sized residential properties. The limitations set out in the White Paper and reproduced in Clause 38 have been carefully considered. The figure of £10,000 was chosen to cover an area in which the existing provisions have given rise to some difficulty. Again, I think that the limit is fairly generous where a high price is obtained for a house. An owner-occupier who has the benefit of the existing 10 per cent. addition for current use value and who then retains 60 per cent. of the development value which is realised can hardly be said to be suffering hardship.

Mr. Graham Page: In dealing with the previous Amendment, the Minister used that extraordinary argument in paragraph 8 of the White Paper about


large houses with extensive grounds. That argument applies to this Amendment rather than to the last Amendment—that houses selling at our figure of between £10,000 and £15,000 are all large houses with extensive grounds sold at high profits. That is not so. The £10,000 house of today is the £7,000 house of a few years ago, and the £15,000 house of today is the £10,000 house of a few years ago.
I judge this by experience as director of a building society. Building societies are allowed to advance one-tenth of their annual advances on houses of £10,000 or more, and the building societies always try to make the advance of one-tenth of their annual advances on that type of house. One can therefore say that an

Division No. 217.]
AYES
[10.26 p.m.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Grant-Ferris, R.
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Astor, John
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Murton, Oscar


Atkins, Humphrey (M't'n &amp; M'd'n)
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Nicholls, Sir Harmar


Awdry, Daniel
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Nott, John


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hastings, Stephen
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian


Balniel, Lord
Hawkins, Paul
Osborn, John (Hallam)


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Hay, John
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Batsford, Brian
Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel
Page, John (Harrow, W.)


Bell, Ronald
Heseltine, Michael
Pardoe, John


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Higgins, Terence L.
Percival, Ian


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Hiley, Joseph
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Hill, J. E. B.
Pink, R. Bonner


Biffen, John
Holland, Philip
Pounder, Rafton


Black, Sir Cyril
Hooson, Emlyn
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Blaker, Peter
Hordern, Peter
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Hornby, Richard
Prior, J. M. L.


Body, Richard
Hunt, John
Pym, Francis


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Iremonger, T. L.
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N &amp; M)
Jopling, Michael
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Buck, Antony (Colchester)
Kershaw, Anthony
Ridsdale, Julian


Bullus, Sir Eric
Kimball, Marcus
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Royle, Anthony


Chichester-Clark, R.
Kitson, Timothy
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Clark, Henry
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Silvester, Frederick


Clegg, Walter
Lane, David
Sinclair, Sir George


Cooke, Robert
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Corfield, F. V.
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Smith, John (London &amp; W'minster)


Costain, A. P.
Longden, Gilbert
Speed, Keith


Crouch, David
Lubbock, Eric
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Currie, G. B. H.
Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross &amp; Cromt'y)
Stodart, Anthony



Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Dalkeith, Earl of
McMaster, Stanley
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Dance, James
McNair-Wilson, Michael (W'stow E.)
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Temple, John M.


Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Maddan, Martin
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Drayson, G. B.
Maginnis, John E.
Tilney, John


Emery, Peter
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Farr, John
Marten, Neil
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Fortescue, Tim
Mawby, Ray
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Foster, Sir John




Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Waddington, David


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Glover, Sir Douglas
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Goodhart, Philip
Monro, Hector
Walters, Dennis


Goodhew, Victor
More, Jasper
Ward, Dame Irene


Gower, Raymond
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Weatherill, Bernard


Grant, Anthony
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Wells, John (Maidstone)

average of 10 per cent. of building society advances is advanced on houses of £10,000 or more. To ignore that fact and keep the figure at £10,000 as the limit in the Bill is nonsense.

The reality is that if we are to give any sort of concession to the ordinary range of family dwelling-houses, and particularly those in the South-East, the figure should go up to £15,000. The Minister's arguments over this Clause, as over the last Clause, put him, to mix it all up, in the category of Alice in Wonderland living in cloud-cuckoo-land.

Question put, That the Amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 161, Noes 214.

Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard



Wiggin, A. W.
Woodnutt, Mark
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)
Wright, Esmond
Mr. R. W. Elliot and


Winstanley, Dr. M. P.
Wylie, N. R.
Mr. Reginald Eyre.




NOES


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Hamling, William
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)


Alldritt, Walter
Hannan, William
Morris, John (Aberavon)


Archer, Peter
Harper, Joseph
Moyle, Roland


Ashley, Jack
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Neal, Harold


Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Newens, Stan


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Hattersley, Roy
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Hazell, Bert
Ogden, Eric


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Heffer, Eric S.
Oram, Albert E.


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Henig, Stanley
Orbach, Maurice


Barnett, Joel
Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Orme, Stanley


Beaney, Alan
Hilton, W. S.
Oswald, Thomas


Bence, Cyril
Hooley, Frank
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)


Bidwell, Sydney
Horner, John
Padley, Walter


Binns, John
Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)


Bishop, E. S.
Hoy, James
Paget, R. T.


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Huckfield, Leslie
Palmer, Arthur


Booth, Albert
Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Park, Trevor


Boston, Terence
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)


Brooks, Edwin
Hunter, Adam
Pavitt, Laurence


Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Hynd, John
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)


Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Irvine, Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)


Buchan, Norman
Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)


Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.


Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)


Carmichael, Neil
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Price, William (Rugby)


Carter-Jones, Lewis
Jones, Dan (Burnley)



Conlan, Bernard
Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Richard, Ivor


Crawshaw, Richard
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Judd, Frank
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy


Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Kelley, Richard
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)


Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Kenyon, Clifford
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P'c'as)


Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)
Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Roebuck, Roy


Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Davies, Rt. Hn. Harold (Leek)
Lawson, George
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Leadbitter, Ted
Sheldon, Robert


Delargy, Hugh
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Dell, Edmund
Lee, John (Reading)
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Dempsey, James
Lestor, Miss Joan
Silverman, Julius


Dewar, Donald
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham. N.)
Skeffington, Arthur


Diamond, Rt. Hn. John
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Slater, Joseph


Dickens, James
Lipton, Marcus
Small, William


Driberg, Tom
Loughlin, Charles
Spriggs, Leslie


Dunnett, Jack
Luard, Evan
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Taverne, Dick


Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Thomson, Rt. Hn. George


Eadie, Alex
McCann, John
Thornton, Ernest


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
MacColl, James
Tinn, James


Ellis, John
MacDermot, Niall
Tuck, Raphael


English, Michael
McGuire, Michael
Urwin, T. W.


Ensor, David
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Varley, Eric G.


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Mackie, John
Walden, Brian (All Saints)


Fernyhough, E.
Mackintosh, John P.
Wallace, George


Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir Eric (Islington, E.)
McNamara, J. Kevin
Watkins, David (Consett)


Fletcher, Raymond Ilkeston)
MacPherson, Malcolm
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Wellbeloved, James


Ford, Ben
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Whitaker, Ben


Forrester, John
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
White, Mrs. Eirene


Fowler, Gerry
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Whitlock, William


Fraser, John (Norwood)
Mapp, Charles
Wilkins, W. A.


Freeson, Reginald
Marquand, David
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Gardner, Tony
Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Ginsburg, David
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Willis, Rt. Hn. George




Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)


Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Winnick, David


Gregory, Arnold
Mendelson, John
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Grey, Charles (Durham)
Mikardo, Ian
Woof, Robert


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Millan, Bruce



Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Miller, Dr. M. S.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Mr. Neil McBride and


Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Mr. Ernest G. Perry.


Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

Mr. Kenneth Baker: I beg to move, Amendment No. 60, in page 55, line 16, at end insert:
This paragraph will also apply if the grantor is a body of trustees whose only asset is a single private residence occupied by a life tenant or other person with a permanent right of occupation, and where the residence is compulsorily purchased.
I believe that it would be testing the wells of compassion of the Committee if hon. Members heard about many more hardship cases caused by the betterment levy, but the Minister should be compelled to listen to them for two hours every morning between 10 and 12 o'clock. If he had to suffer that he would realise that it is no good talking about reforming or alleviating the levy, and that what is wanted is simply its abolition.
I shall argue the Amendment not on grounds of hardship but equity. It seeks to extend the relief the Clause gives to owner-occupied houses to houses which are in the next category. By that I mean the case where the husband has died and has left his house not directly to his wife but in trust for her for her life, and she lives in it as a life tenant. This is not an elaborate way of evading estate duty, but more and more houses are being left in this way.
Such a house is not covered by the Clause, and the following circumstances can arise, and have arisen. Where the widow takes up residence as a life tenant, the trustees would not normally have to sell the property, because she would live in it for the rest of her life. But when the property is to be compulsorily purchased liability to betterment levy may arise.
A case has been sent to me of a widow in Hounslow who is a life tenant of her family house, left to her by her husband. The trust owns only that house; it has no other money, and as a result the house is falling into disrepair. The Hounslow Borough Council wants to buy the property for the purposes of a playing field scheme, and the compulsory purchase order has been granted. The council is prepared to pay £7,500 for the house, which is the development value, but, because the house is in such a bad state of repair for the reason I stated, the current use value is about £5,000.
There is here an anomaly, or, worse than that, an injustice. A property is to

be compulsorily purchased. There is no improvement, no development, no betterment of any kind, but there is no relief. There will be a charge to betterment levy in this case of about £400 payable by this woman. The Government accept that cases of this sort should have a measure of relief, for that is the main principle behind Clause 38, but there is no relief when the house is held in trust.
My Amendment is not an attempt to make a loophole in the Clause. It is a genuine attempt to give relief in cases of real inequity. There must be many people in circumstances similar to those I have described. Many family houses are now held in trust for the surviving wife. When any such house is liable to be compulsorily purchased for any purpose, a charge to betterment levy may arise. I propose the Amendment to iron out the anomaly and eliminate an injustice.

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport: Lieut.-Colonel Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport (Knutsford)rose—

Hon. Members: Hear, hear.

Sir W. Bromley-Davenport: I had not intended to intervene at this stage, though I had it in mind, perhaps, to speak to the Question on the Clause as a whole. I have one word to say to all my hon. Friends on this side—[HON. MEMBERS: "And on this side."]—yes, I have quite a lot of hon. Friends on the Government side, too.
I pay tribute to the excellent speech just made by my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Kenneth Baker), but I warn all my hon. Friends that it is an absolute waste of time talking about hardship cases to the concrete lobby-fodder opposite. There is only one hardship case with which they are concerned. [An HON. MEMBER: "And that is you."] All right. Here is an in-swinger on the middle stump. The only hardship case with which they are concerned is the £3,250 which they will lose at the next election when they are turned out of office.

Mr. K. Robinson: The whole Committee was delighted to watch that short innings on a concrete pitch.
When I first saw this Amendment on the Paper, I was somewhat mystified, because it seemed to me that it sought to


amend the Bill to cover the narrowest conceivable category of case. I then had some researches done, and I found that there was the case to which the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Kenneth Baker) referred, which, clearly, had led him to put the Amendment down. His constituents are, obviously, worried about the possibility of having to pay levy. My information is that, despite what he has said, the district valuer has not yet reported on the case, and it is not yet known whether any liability to levy will be revealed. Should it be revealed, then, I think, it is a case which the Land Commission itself would wish to look at.
As to the Amendment itself, the provisions of Clause 38 are intended to apply solely to owner-occupiers. Although there are, I agree, certain special features in the particular case to which the hon. Gentleman referred, I do not think that it would be appropriate to amend the Bill to cover this very narrow category. Generally, we must equate trustees with landlords rather than with owner-occupiers. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Certainly, yes.
10.45 p.m.
Once we go beyond the owner-occupiers we are in a very difficult area, and for that reason I am afraid that I cannot accept the Amendment notwithstanding that this particular case is one which I am sure the Commission will want to look at carefully should it appear that levy is payable when the district valuer has reported.

Mr. Peter Walker: I had hoped that this very reasonable Amendment, covering a very narrow range of people would be acceptable. I am surprised that the Minister opposes the Amendment on the ground that the specific constituency case raised may not result in a levy being made. The principle is exactly the same, and it is an important one. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to look at this again between now and Report.

Dame Irene Ward: The Minister seemed to take exception to the fact that this relates only to a very narrow group of cases. This does not appeal to me. I thought we tried to see that justice was done to everyone. I do not believe that the Minister has had proper legal advice on this question. We should be very

careful to consider the minority. I thought that we were proud of our record in doing just that. It is like that ridiculous mistake of the Secretary of State for Social Services, who did not realise that nurses have cups of tea and coffee. This has not been properly considered.
The Minister did not realise that this kind of thing can happen. No one really understands the problems of the widows, and it is important that the position of widows, who suffer a great deal, should be taken into account whether by a Conservative or Socialist Government. Here is an opportunity to do something. The Minister should have more legal advice on this matter. There must be plenty of lawyers in Government service—we need a lot to protect the interests of the people.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Ronald Russell): Order. The hon. Lady must speak to the Amendment.

Dame Irene Ward: Only lawyers can find out these things. Someone has to protect the public from the Minister. Only lawyers know whether the rules of a Department are being transgressed Ordinary people like myself, and widows do not know whether they are being properly treated because they are not legally minded. It is tremendously important, therefore, to know whether we have sufficient lawyers, not that I want to stand up for them—

The Temporary Chairman: Order. I must ask the hon. Lady not to labour the point. The Amendment is a very narrow one.

Dame Irene Ward: It does not matter whether it is a narrow Amendment or not—

The Temporary Chairman: But it does.

Dame Irene Ward: We are talking about a broad principle. I object that in the House of Commons we eliminate everybody who does not come within a broad principle. Everybody has a right to protection and consideration in the House of Commons. That is my theory, and I will stand up for it until I am dead.
I want to know why the Minister should take such exception to the fact that it is only a narrow case. Whatever the case, he should accept it if it is


proved, as I am sure it will be, because my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Kenneth Baker) would not have moved it if he was not right. This is simply a new way for the Minister to use his charming approach, but charm is not everything in government.

Mr. Maurice Orbach: Do not say that.

Dame Irene Ward: It is another charming way of trying to get out of the responsibilities which have been put forward during the whole debate on this part of the Finance Bill, or whatever it is.
I want the Minister, please, to explain why he took the line he did and talked about it being only a small section of the community. Every constituent of mine has as much right to consideration as he has.

Mr. K. Robinson: Mr. K. Robinsonrose—

Mr. John Page: It is essential that the Minister gives us an undertaking to look at the Amendment again.

Mr. Robinson: I was endeavouring to respond to the request of the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker). Before doing so, may I say to the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) that, of course, I agree that small categories—and, indeed, individuals—are entitled to the protection of the House of Commons. The only point I was making was that protection need not always take the form of legislation. I did not take exception to the tabling of the Amendment or anything that the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Kenneth Baker) said. I merely made some observations.
In the light of what the hon. Member for Worcester has said, of course I will consider what has been said before Report—he will understand, without commitment. This is a complicated matter, however, and certainly I will have another look at it.

Mr. Kenneth Baker: In view of what the Minister has said and the consideration which he has undertaken to give, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Peter Walker: I beg to move Amendment No. 23, in page 55, line 34, leave out '1969' and insert '1967'.

The Temporary Chairman: With this Amendment we are taking also Amendment No. 30, in page 56, line 14, leave out '1969' and insert '1967', and Amendment No. 69, in page 56, line 14, at end add:
(3) To the extent that levy has been paid which would not have been payable had this section been in operation on and since 6th April 1967, a sum equal to the amount of such payment shall be repaid to the payer or his personal representative with interest thereon from the date of such payment to the date of such repayment at the rate prescribed for the purpose of this section by the Treasury.

Mr. Walker: Amendment No. 23, which is similar to an Amendment which was discussed earlier today, proposes that those who have paid the levy but who would not have paid it had this concession been made should have the money returned to them. I have no hope whatever that the Minister will accept the Amendment. Throughout the day he has persisted in his view that those who have already suffered hardship should continue to suffer hardship. I have no doubt that he will want them to continue suffering hardship by opposing the Amendment.
As this is probably the final Amendment to be taken on the Clause, may I say that we have tried throughout the day to ensure that a few concessions that the Government have made should be extended to those who have already suffered. The Government have refused to concede the point. Throughout the day our belief and arguments have been reinforced, and certainly we stick to our firm pledge that at the earliest opportunity we will abolish the Land Commission and all its work.

Mr. K. Robinson: The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Peter Walker) fully recognises that the case for retrospection in this instance, whatever it was on the earlier Amendment, is a great deal weaker. He spoke about hardship, but this is not an Amendment for the relief of hardship; it is an Amendment to relieve certain types of owner-occupiers from the payment of levy. Certainly hardship is not the main consideration which led the Government to make the provisions of Clause 38. However, as the


hon. Gentleman rightly said, having resisted retrospection on the earlier Amendment, I could not advise the Committee to accept it on this.

Division No. 218.]
AYES
[10.55 p.m.


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Page, Graham (Crosby)


Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian
Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Page, John (Harrow, W.)


Astor, John
Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Pardoe, John


Awdry, Daniel
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere
Percival, Ian


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Hastings, Stephen
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hawkins, Paul
Pink, R. Bonner


Balniel, Lord
Hay, John
Pounder, Rafton


Barber, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Heseltine, Michael
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch


Batsford, Brian
Higgins, Terence L
Price, David (Eastleigh)


Bell, Ronald
Hiley, Joseph
Prior, J. M. L.


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Hill, J. E. B.
Pym, Francis


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Holland, Philip
Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Hooson, Emlyn
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Biffen, John
Hordern, Peter
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Black, Sir Cyril
Hornby, Richard
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Blaker, Peter
Hunt, John
Ridsdale, Julian


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Iremonger, T. L.
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Body, Richard
Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Royle, Anthony


Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward
Jopling, Michael
Shaw, Michael (Sc'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Brewis, John
Kershaw, Anthony
Silvester, Frederick


Brinton, Sir Tatton
Kimball, Marcus
Sinclair, Sir George


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter
King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Kitson, Timothy
Smith, John (London &amp; W'minster)


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N &amp; M)
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Speed, Keith


Buck, Antony (Colchester)
Lane, David
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Campbell, B. (Oldham, W.)
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Stodart, Anthony


Chichester-Clark, R.
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Clark, Henry
Longden, Gilbert
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Clegg, Walter
Lubbock, Eric
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Cooke, Robert
Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross &amp; Crom'ty)
Temple, John M.


Corfield, F. V.
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy


Costain, A. P.
McNair-Wilson, Michael (W'stow, E.)
Tilney, John


Crouch, David
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (New Forest)
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Currie, G. B. H.
Maddan, Martin
van Straubenzee, W. R.


Dalkeith, Earl of
Maginnis, John E.
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John


Dance, James
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Waddington, David


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F. (Ashford)
Marten, Neil
Wainwright, Richard (Colne Valley)


Dodds-Parker, Douglas
Mawby, Ray
Walker, Peter (Worcester)


Drayson, G. B.
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Walters, Dennis


Emery, Peter
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Ward, Dame Irene


Eyre, Reginald
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Weatherill, Bernard




Wells, John (Maidstone)


Farr, John
Monro, Hector
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


Fortescue, Tim
More, Jasper
Wiggin, A. W.


Foster, Sir John
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Williams, Donald (Dudley)


Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.


Glover, Sir Douglas
Munro-Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Murton, Oscar
Woodnutt, Mark


Goodhart, Philip
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Wylie, N. R.


Goodhew, Victor
Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael



Gower, Raymond
Nott, John
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Grant-Ferris, R.
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian
Mr. Humphrey Atkins and


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Mr. Anthony Grant.




NOES


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Bray, Dr. Jeremy
Davies, Ednyfed Hudson (Conway)


Alldritt, Walter
Brooks, Edwin
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)


Archer, Peter
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Davies, Dr. Ernest (Stretford)


Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Davies, Rt. Hn. Harold (Leek)


Atkins, Ronald (Preston, N.)
Buchan, Norman
Davies, Ifor (Gower)


Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Buchanan, Richard (G'gow, Sp'burn)
Delargy, Hugh


Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice
Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Dell, Edmund


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Cant, R. B.
Dempsey, James


Barnett, Joel
Carmichael, Neil
Dewar, Donald


Bence, Cyril
Carter-Jones, Lewis
Diamond, Rt. Hn. John


Bidwell, Sydney
Conlan, Bernard
Dickens, James


Binns, John
Crawshaw, Richard
Driberg, Tom


Bishop, E. S.
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony
Dunnett, Jack


Booth, Albert
Crossman, Rt. Hn. Richard
Dunwoody, Mrs. Gwyneth (Exeter)


Boston, Terence
Darling, Rt. Hn. George
Dunwoody, Dr. John (F'th &amp; C'b'e)

Question put, That the Amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 159, Noes 211.

Eadie, Alex
Lawson, George
Pavitt, Laurence


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Leadbitter, Ted
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)


Ellis, John
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


English, Michael
Lee, John (Reading)
Perry, Ernest G. (Battersea, S.)


Ensor, David
Lestor, Miss Joan
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham, N.)
Prentice, Rt. Hn. R. E.


Evans, Ioan L. (Birm'h'm, Yardley)
Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)


Fernyhough, E.
Lipton, Marcus
Price, William (Rugby)


Fletcher, Rt. Hn. Sir Eric (Islington, E.)
Loughlin, Charles
Richard, Ivor


Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)
Luard, Evan
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Lyon, Alexander W. (York)
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy



Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)


Ford, Ben
McCann, John
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Forrester, John
MacColl, James
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Kenneth (St. P'c'as)


Fowler, Gerry
MacDermot, Niall
Rodgers, William (Stockton)


Fraser, John (Norwood)
McGuire, Michael
Roebuck, Roy


Freeson, Reginald
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)


Gardner, Tony
Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)
Sheldon, Robert


Ginsburg, David
Mackie, John
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Gray, Dr. Hugh (Yarmouth)
Mackintosh, John P.
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Grey, Charles (Durham)
McNamara, J. Kevin
Silverman, Julius


Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
MacPherson, Malcolm
Skeffington, Arthur


Griffiths, Will (Exchange)
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Slater, Joseph


Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Mahon, Simon (Bootle)
Small, William


Hamilton, William (Fife, W.)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Spriggs, Leslie


Hamling, William
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R.


Hannan, William
Mapp, Charles
Taverne, Dick


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Marquand, David
Thomson, Rt. Hn. George


Hart, Rt. Hn. Judith
Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard
Thornton, Ernest


Hattersley, Roy
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Tinn, James


Hazell, Bert
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Tomney, Frank


Heffer, Eric S.
Mendelson, John
Urwin, T. W.


Henig, Stanley
Mikardo, Ian
Varley, Eric G.


Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Millan, Bruce
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Hilton, W. S.
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Walden, Brian (All Saints)


Hooley, Frank
Mitchell, R. C. (S'th'pton, Test)
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Horner, John
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Wallace, George


Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Watkins, David (Consett)


Hoy, James
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Watkins, Tudor (Brecon &amp; Radnor)


Huckfield, Leslie
Morris, John (Aberavon)
Wellbeloved, James


Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Moyle, Roland
Whitaker, Ben


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Neal, Harold
White, Mrs. Eirene


Hunter, Adam
Newens, Stan
Whitlock, William


Hynd, John
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip (Derby, S.)
Wilkins, W. A.


Irvine, Sir Arthur (Edge Hill)
Ogden, Eric
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Jay, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Oram, Albert E.
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Orbach, Maurice
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Orme, Stanley
Willis, Rt. Hn. George


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Oswald, Thomas
Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)


Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Owen, Dr. David (Plymouth, S'tn)
Winnick, David


Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W. Ham, S.)
Padley, Walter
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)




Judd, Frank
Page, Derek (King's Lynn)
Woof, Robert


Kelley, Richard
Paget, R. T.



Kenyon, Clifford
Palmer, Arthur
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter &amp; Chatham)
Park, Trevor
Mr. Neil McBride and


Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Mr. Joseph Harper.


Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Parkyn, Brian (Bedford)

Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Diamond): I beg to move,
That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
We have had a full and useful day's debate and it is now an appropriate time to consider the next business.

Question put and agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — MEMBERS' INTERESTS (DECLARATION)

11.6 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Fred Peart): I beg to move,
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the rules and practices of the House in relation to the declaration of Members' interests and to report thereon.
As the House knows, many hon. Members have questioned recently whether our present rules and procedures on the disclosure by Members of their outside interests are adequate, given the considerable changes in business and Parliamentary practice since these rules were established. In recognition of these doubts,


my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced on 26th March a proposal to establish a Select Committee to look into this question. This will provide an opportunity to review our current practices, and to examine the developments and changes in business and Parliamentary practices affecting this issue in recent years and the differing and sometimes complex forms which Members' interests can now take.
The Select Committee will be able to consider what changes, if any, are needed to our rules on the declaration of interest, in the best interests of the House and of public life generally. I am sure the House would wish these issues to be clarified.
The present position set out in Erskine May is that Members are clearly obliged to state their interests when voting on an issue in which they have a direct pecuniary interest. And, of course, the House has long prohibited the acceptance of fees by Members for professional services concerned with Parliament, or the promotion by a Member of any matter in which he has been concerned for reward.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Could I—

Mr. Peart: I know that—

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Will the right hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): Order. There must be no conversation between two hon. Members on their feet at the same time. If the right hon. Gentleman is not prepared to give way, the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) must remain in his seat.

Mr. Peart: I know the hon. Member wants to help me, but I think he would help me with a little silence.
The House has long prohibited the acceptance of fees by hon. Members for professional services concerned with Parliament or, as I said earlier, the promotion by a Member of any matter in which he is concerned, and I think this is right.
Strictly speaking, a declaration of interest need not, however, necessarily be made by a Member merely speaking to an issue; nor does it extend to the increasing variety of practices in which a

Member's financial interest in a particular matter is less direct.
Considering the importance of this matter, the outstanding feature of Erskine May in this field is its narrowness, its imprecision and its extreme brevity.
Essentially, of course, the underlying assumption has been and always must be that hon. Members can be relied upon to assess these delicate matters in an honourable and proper way and that detailed rules are undesirable and unnecessary. From my long experience in this House I believe that this is right.
The proposal to establish this Select Committee does not imply in any way that there has been any lowering of the high standards which the House has traditionally observed in these matters, or, indeed, in the extent to which the essential safeguards of the House must continue to be the good sense and judgment of individual Members. But in recent years there has been an increasing growth in both the extent and the complexity of what might be termed the borderland of Members' interests. I am thinking, for example, of the sort of problems posed when an hon. Member, whilst not a director or substantial shareholder in a particular firm, holds a public relations commission on its behalf; or how far a Member should declare his interest when engaged in the various activities of the House outside this Chamber—for instance, when he is arranging meetings or study groups here.
Therefore, I consider that hon. Members will welcome the opportunity which this Select Committee will provide for giving clear guidance in the light of contemporary practice in these areas where some may be in doubt whether they should or should not make their interest known.
As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, said:
… it is important that the position of such Members should be made clear in all matters which affect their responsibilities to the House and to their Parliamentary colleagues."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th March, 1969; Vol. 780, c. 1631.]
With this background in mind, the proposed Committee is to be composed of senior and experienced Members of the House on similar lines to the membership of the Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege. Naturally, as with


all Select Committees, not every senior and experienced Member can serve, bearing in mind the need for the Committee to be of manageable size and proper party balance. But I am confident that the names I propose will be acceptable to the House—

An Hon. Member: No.

Mr. Peart: I hope that my hon. Friend will not dispute that, because all hon. Members proposed in the Motion I believe to be honourable.
I also want to make clear that the proposal to set up this Committee does not imply in any way that a Member should not have outside interests. The House has always benefited from the experience of Members who have interests outside. The Members proposed for the Committee include some who have important outside interests. I am sure that we can rely on them to work impartially, and the Committee will benefit from their first-hand experience of the problems which may arise.
The House may also like to know that discussions are still continuing, through the usual channels, on the related question of the operation of public relations and other organisations acting on behalf of overseas political interests.
The Government consider that the House should now focus its attention on this problem; but in proposing, with all party support, the establishment of a Select Committee, the Government do so as servants of the House in this matter, and with the aim of discovering how the sound traditions of the House can best be preserved in the changing conditions of today's society. It is in this spirit that I commend the Motion to the House.

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps I can help the House. I have selected the Amendments in the name of the hon. Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis). Procedurewise, I think that I might put the first paragraph of the Motion to the House. Then, when we come to the second paragraph, I will call the hon. Member for West Ham, North to move his first Amendment and, if necessary, to speak about both.

Mr. John Mendelson: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. Does the selection which you have just announced

mean that the House is precluded from discussing the second paragraph of the Motion without reference to the names mentioned in the Amendment?

Mr. Speaker: No. We are to discuss paragraph 1 if the House wishes to. When that is disposed of we shall discuss paragraph 2, and I shall call the hon. Member for West Ham, North to move his Amendment. That does not prevent hon. Members speaking to the paragraph and the Amendment. I hope that there is no confusion.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Does that mean that the Chair does not wish any discussion on the Motion, but that any remarks made should be directed to the Amendment, or can we discuss—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I am trying to help the House, not hinder it. The Question before the House at the moment is the Question I put, that is, the first paragraph:
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the rules and practices of the House in relation to the declaration of Members' interests and to report thereon.

11.16 p.m.

Mr. Michael English: I thank the Leader of the House for moving this Motion tonight. Indeed, I am extremely pleased that the Prime Minister in his statement saw fit to include mention of a Select Committee of this character.
The Leader of the House has related quite succinctly the earlier history of this matter in this House. It is quite ancient. It goes back to the seventeenth century. But I must part company from my right hon. Friend when he says that the important thing is that hon. Members can be relied on to understand the interests of other hon. Members when they speak, and so on. This was the eighteenth century principle. This was quite correct in the days when this House was a small portion of the oligarchy which ruled the United Kingdom. But I am sorry to say that in putting forward this Motion my right hon. Friend gave me the impression that he came to bury Caesar, not to praise him. He gave me the impression that he felt that the eighteenth century practice was, after all, good enough.
The important point surely is not whether hon. Members know the interests of other hon. Members. Of course we do in most cases: not in every case, but in general we do, I think. The important thing surely is whether members of the public know the interests of hon. Members. If an hon. Member stands up, and we all know that he represents as it were a particular interest, we in this House will to a certain extent perhaps discount his words on an issue. How is a member of the public necessarily to do that?
I agree with my right hon. Friend. I have not the slightest desire to exclude from this House people with interests. I think that this House is much better with a combination of what we might call part-time and full-time Members, with a combination of Members with interests and without interests, that it is much better as a representative body in the proper sense of the word. In other words, there are 630 Members, and we are all different, and long may that principle remain.
What I am concerned about is that people outside should know what those interests are, and not merely hon. Members. My right hon. Friend is, of course, correct. Most hon. Members could, if they so wished, compile a reasonably accurate list of the interests—in some cases concealed interests; in some cases quite open—of other hon. Members. This is not the point. The point is that since the introduction of the rules mentioned by my right hon. Friend the system of government in this country has changed. It is now a democracy. It is not a little House of Commons that sits in secret and does not allow its matters to be published. It is a public representative body which represents the whole of the people of the United Kingdom, and it seems to me that in the current circumstances it is appropriate that when an hon. Member stands up in this House the whole of the United Kingdom should know perfectly well whether he has a particular financial or other interest in the matter under discussion.
My right hon. Friend said that according to the rules of the House such interests should be declared before a Member votes. The point seems to be somewhat

obscure. My right hon. Friend seemed to be quite confident that a Member did not have to declare an interest before he spoke, but did have to declare an interest before he voted. Most hon. Members will agree that it is not uncommon for Members to declare interests before they speak, but it is highly uncommon for Members to hear a list of hon. Members declaring interests before they vote, although they have never spoken. I have never heard it in my five years in the House, and I have never seen it in HANSARD over a much longer period. If the rule is as my right hon. Friend states I can only say that it is one of those rules which are more honoured in the breach than in the observance. My right hon. Friend has surprised me that the rule could be as he said.
But the really important thing—and the reason why I shall ultimately support my right hon. Friend on this part of the Motion—is that we must do something about the interests of a Member at the receiving end of such interests. When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made his statement I was most pleased. As hon. Members know, I had raised this point with the Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege. That Committee, for reasons known to itself, did not wish to deal with the point. It certainly had enough to deal with without that. But it did print my memorandum as an appendix. In that memorandum I made a comparison between the practices of this House and the practices of the Congress of the United States, which are substantially derived from the former practices of this House but which, in the course of time, have become substantially different.
The important point is that the Congress of the United States has endeavoured to do what my right hon. Friend mentioned when he talked about the question of public relations firms, and so on. Congress has endeavoured to register lobbyists—the men who pay the money—and has found it impossible for a quite simple reason. We can, as the United States does, say that we will register a lobbyist—a person whose principal business is to lobby Members of the legislature in an endeavour to encourage those Members to support a certain policy; that is easy.
The point is that anybody in a democratic society may wish to do that, and it is quite proper and right that he should wish to do that. We might register public relations firms, but are we going to register the oil companies, the property companies, the trade unions, or anybody else whose principal business is not lobbying but something totally different, but who may be affected by a certain taxation proposal or something of the kind that is before the House and who may therefore quite legitimately wish to lobby on a particular issue? In a democratic society any organisation or person may wish to encourage or discourage Members of Parliament from doing or not doing a certain act in this House.
That is something which cannot be prevented in a democratic society; nor is it desirable that it should be. Unless we register every single person, corporate or individual, in the United Kingdom, we will not do the job. The Select Committee proposed by my right hon. Friend is the only way to do the job. It does not matter whether one registers public relations firms but it matter very much that one registers the interests of Members of this House of Commons. That is why we hope that this Select Committee will consider that point and do the job properly. That is why there are reservations about whether this Select Committee will do that job properly.
I do not propose to go into that question because it will be discussed shortly. I therefore support my right hon. Friend on the principle now before the House. It is the only way in which the public of the United Kingdom can be informed of the interests of Members when they are discussing issues.

11.25 p.m.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I tried to intervene at the beginning of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, because I thought that he said that Erskine May had said that one needed to register one's interest only when one votes. I understood that one registered one's interest when one spoke. I suspect that that was a slip of the tongue, and that he said "vote" when he meant "speak"—

Mr. Peart: "Vote".

Sir Harmar Nicholls: This Select Committee is not a good idea. An argument can be produced for it in theory, as the hon. Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) did, but it will not be good for Parliament. Such a Select Committee would be bound to bring in new rules and regulations, because the evidence suggested that they would not be a bad thing. As a result, a procedure which has worked well and easily will be made more rigid. Hon. Members could commit a technical breach and could be criticised.
What has gone on since the eighteenth century is effective and sufficient. Even the newest hon. Member knows that, if he stands to gain even a halfpenny or a farthing from any topic discussed in the House, he must disclose the fact. Generally, that has been done, and anyone who has omitted doing so has generally acted only in eagerness to get to his main argument, and not from any desire to mislead. Tying membership of the House to rigid rules will affect it in the same way as it has been affected by Members' obligation to be "nannies" to matters in their constituencies which have nothing to do with their Parliamentary duties.
Many men who could contribute to the workings of the House do not let their names go forward for the rigour of the hustings because they think that certain things which are not written now are keeping them away—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We must not widen the debate. It is wide enough already.

Mr. James Dickens: On a point of order. It is important to get this clear. The Lord President made some background notes which included some—at least to me—controversial remarks about the rights and obligations of Members. I think that we should have a Ruling from you, Mr. Speaker, about how wide you intend the debate to go on the first paragraph, because some of us want to raise certain fundamental aspects of membership of the House which arise on that paragraph.

Mr. Speaker: I thought that I had made it crystal clear. We are discussing the setting up of a Committee
… to consider the rules and practices of the House in relation to the declaration of Members' interests and report thereon …
That is clear enough.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: My point, when you drew my attention to the words, Mr. Speaker, was relevant. I was saying that, if practices which are generally understood but which are not even written down prevent men coming to Parliament who should be here, a rigid rule which emerged from the Select Committee's investigations would have the same effect. Parliament must be made up of people who are known automatically and spontaneously as leaders of the community. Drake and Raleigh were Members of Parliament. They were not much good as Members of Parliament, but they were recognised leaders of the community and Parliament was enhanced by their presence.
In the early years of my attendance, there were men of eminence here who were not very good as Parliamentarians, but the mere fact that they were here added some lustre to Parliament, and helped the acceptance of some legislation which would not have been accepted but for their presence here. I believe that the trade union leaders should be here, for they would enhance our proceedings and then be properly represented.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are discussing whether or not to set up
… a Select Committee … to consider the rules and practices of the House in relation to the declaration of Members' interests and to report thereon …
The hon. Gentleman must address his remarks to that.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: It is clear that my intention is not in accordance with your wishes, Mr. Speaker, and I will not, therefore, pursue the matter further, except to emphasise that we should do nothing which might make it difficult for the right people to come here; and I fear that the first paragraph of the Motion will do just that.
If the Leader of the House has any influence with the Select Committee, I urge him to make it clear that we are not seeking a rigid set of rules which must be adhered to. If hon. Members ever became frightened to speak because

they might be infringing a little rule, we would be in the position of a man being brought before the magistrates for failing to sign his driving licence. If other hon. Members adopt this view and make the position clear, we may, by having our views on the record, influence the Select Committee into accepting that, generally speaking, we need part-time hon. Members and people who can bring first-hand experience of matters.
Whenever I hear an hon. Member declare an interest, I listen to him with rather more interest than I would an hon. Member who is speaking to somebody else's brief. Our debates are enhanced when hon. Members speak from actual experience of works, factories, offices and so on. We should do nothing to make it less likely that such people will come to Parliament.
Without wishing to exaggerate the position, I fear that if we have a rigid set of rules we will drive away the part-time hon. Member and fill this place with full-time Parliamentarians; and they are not the best sort of people to fill our legislature. I know of no instance of an hon. Member deliberately evading declaring an interest because of a desire to have a pecuniary advantage.

Mr. English: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that he has rarely heard an hon. Member declare an interest before voting, even if he had not contributed to the debate? That is the point to which my right hon. Friend referred.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: Any interests should be declared at the time of speaking. In any event, from the point of view of people knowing an hon. Member's interests, few people get to this place without a struggle. I fought six elections, usually with several recounts. One cannot arrive here without one's constituents knowing all the details. The watchdogs in the constituencies, the committees of all political parties, know what it is all about. One is under the microscope at election time and it is a remote possibility that one could have a hidden interest which one hopes to turn to one's advantage.

11.35 p.m.

Mr. James Dickens: I support the setting up of a Select Committee. A register of Members with outside interests is long overdue. However, I note, in passing, some of the


qualifications made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham, West (Mr. English) about the effectiveness of legislation in North America.
My right hon. Friend the Lord President of the Council said something with which I dissent. He appeared to me to say that it was in the interests of the House that it should have Members with outside interests. When we are considering a Motion such as this, we should ask ourselves whether that is any longer the case. It is true that, in the past, membership of the House has been enriched by people with a wide range of private, part-time private interests, but I submit that the requirements of the modern industrial State are now such as to demand that membership of the national legislative assembly should be regarded as full-time work.
I do not believe that this Motion is now before us purely as a mere accident of time. It has come up primarily because more and more hon. Members, due to the inadequacy of their salaries and the absence of services made available to them, are having increasingly to seek outside occupations of one kind or another to subvent their incomes.
Bearing in mind the fact that the income of a Member has declined by 20 per cent. in real terms since October, 1964; that a Member's salary is lower than that of their counterparts in almost any other Parliament in other advanced countries, and that the services made available to us are in every major respect well below those made available in, for example, Italy, France, Germany, Japan or Canada, one sees the importance of considering once again the type of Member which the country will require in the 'seventies.
We should consider whether a Member should be regarded as someone who serves here for a fixed period and who whilst subject to continual five-year re-election or re-election at the end of Parliament, would be here for a fixed period of continuous membership not exceeding, say, 15 years at any one time, and then be required to leave for a lifetime of a Parliament before seeking reelection.
We should consider, too, whether we should raise the salary, not to an extravagant

level but to the level of, broadly speaking, that of the Assistant Secretary grade in the Civil Service, provide adequate services, and then debar Members during their membership from outside paid employment. In short, I believe that the day has gone when the House of Commons should rely to any considerable extent on Members who are, as it were, part-time barristers, or business men or journalists, though all these professions have a notable part to play in our national life. The job of Member of Parliament should be full time, well paid and adequately serviced. Moreover, Members, on completion of their period of service in the House, should be given reinstatement rights in their former occupation or an ex gratia payment in lieu thereof.
I fully realise that my views are novel and will not command a wide measure of support in the House. This is a not unfamiliar position for me. However, that does not deter me from advancing the argument, because I think that the argument should be advocated and listened to. If my suggestions were adopted, then in the 1970s we could, contrary to the views of the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls), attract into the House a much wider range of talents, a much wider range of people prepared to give up a professional or executive job, perhaps in early life, in the expectation that they will serve in the House for only a fixed period—well paid, well serviced, and with guaranteed reinstatement rights at the end of their service. This is the way in which the House will have to look in future for the type of Member the country will require in the 1970s.
The calibre of membership will almost certainly decline in the 1970s if action is not taken quickly either about the salary or about the conditions of service. Young scientists and technologists cannot be expected to stand for Parliament unless drastic improvements are made. I greatly hope that the points I have made will be borne in mind in this debate and in the course of the Select Committee's deliberations.

11.42 p.m.

Mr. John Smith: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dickens). In some respects he is my hon.


Friend the Member for Lewisham, West, because he and I and one of the occupants of the Liberal bench have been busying ourselves together with some of the problems he mentioned.
I support the Motion and, I support one of the Amendments, but I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should be a House consisting entirely of full-time Members. I do not think that Members of Parliament should be entirely blinkered. We have seen the ill effects of that in other institutions where the occupants are insulated from the outside world—for example, in some of the churches. An institution such as this has a natural bias towards being introspective. It would be a great mistake if we were all full-time Members.
I support the Motion because it would greatly increase the value which the House can derive from what Hon. Members say if it could find out easily what the interest of Members were. I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) that the necessity to declare an interest would necessarily keep people out of the House.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: I did not say that. I think that it is vital that Members should declare their interests, but the existence of a rigid set of rules about the declaration of interests may deter people from coming here.

Mr. Smith: I am sorry if I misunderstood my hon. Friend. I do not think that the necessity to declare interests would keep people out, although it is embarrassing to declare an interest. I am sure that many people find themselves in the same position as I do, and have no wish to appear to put themselves forward as knowledgeable about a subject, which is what to declare an interest often does. For example, I would hesitate very much to say in a debate on the aircraft industry that I was a director of Rolls-Royce. I should very much hesitate in a debate concerning newspapers to say that I was a part-proprietor of many provincial newspapers. It does not in the least affect how I speak or vote, but it would add a good deal to what one says if other Members could find this out quietly and in their own time from a register.
Further, I am in favour of appointing the Committee because I hope that such a register will extend to all considerable shareholdings and all directorships. I have worked for 20 years in a bank, and I know that when the customers of a bank stand revealed in a state of financial nudity, as they do, things are not always what they seem. Some people who are popularly supposed to have a considerable interest in such and such a matter are shown to have no interest in it. A register of Members' interests, far from being the agreeable field for gossip and speculation which I have no doubt many hon. Members consider it would be, might prove to be a very disappointing document, and many hon. Members popularly supposed to have the most disgraceful interests would be shown to be in a state of considerable purity.
I would in a way regret such a register, as being in part an invasion of privacy, and therefore I hope that the Committee will recommend it in not too rigid or savage a form, and that the penalties—if there be penalties for failing to complete it perfectly—would not be to severe.
I turn to the composition of the Committee. It seems to me that it has been chosen—

Mr. Speaker: Order. We can discuss the composition when we come to the next paragraph.

Mr. Smith: I understand that, Mr. Speaker. But it would avoid the necessity for me to rise again—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Even at the cost of the hon. Gentleman's having to rise twice, he must keep in order.

Mr. Smith: I know what a stickler you are, Mr. Speaker—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman means that in the Pickwickian sense.

11.49 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: For some weeks a number of my hon. Friends and I have been objecting to the Motion. Such Motions setting up Select Committees are normally agreed between the usual channels, are taken formally at the end of the day, and go through on the nod. My hon. Friends and I who have objected are very appreciative of the action of my right hon.


Friend the Leader of the House in suspending the Rule and giving us an opportunity to debate the Motion. We had objected because we felt that it was a subject that should be debated. Hence, our appreciation to him for giving us that opportunity.
As I say, we objected not to the Motion but to the denial of opportunity to debate it. Now that we have the opportunity, I say at once that I—I think that this is true of most of my hon. Friends—am in favour of the setting up of the Select Committee, and I support the first paragraph which spells that out. Though I do not make great play of this, I do not consider that the paragraph goes far enough. There is here a matter which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House must watch carefully. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dickens) in saying that the first paragraph as drafted does not give the Select Committee opportunity to consider certain important points which are raised by the question why Members have outside interests at all.
For various reasons—I shall not go into them all—there are hon. Members on both sides, possibly more on this side than on that, who have to have outside interests because they just cannot manage. [Interruption.] I hear someone jeer at that, but it is true; they cannot manage on the very poor—I do not call it salary—allowance which they receive. In part it is a salary, but in part it is an allowance to cover only part of their expenses.
For example, a Scottish Member may have to telephone to his constituency on an important matter. It can cost him a lot of money. This is not generally realised. Because I have the convenience, the very satisfactory convenience, of representing a London constituency, so that I can live close to both the House and my constituency, I can telephone to my town clerk on exactly the same matter as the Scottish Member has to raise and do it for nothing, whereas it costs him 10s. This is wrong.

Mr. Peart: I agree that there are many matters in that context which are important to hon. Members. The Services Committee, of which I am Chairman, is looking into them.

Mr. Lewis: I am pleased that it is, but they have been looked into for 25 years. [Laughter.] I am serious about it. We have been looking into these questions for 25 years, but in 1969 we are still in the position we were in in 1945. There are very bad anomalies. That is a fact.
There are hon. Members who, because they work under the disability of representing a constituency—I was going to say in the wilds of Scotland, but I must not say that—at a great distance from the House, cannot afford the extras involved, and they cannot afford to employ a secretary full time.
They are at another disadvantage, because if they employ a full-time secretary the odds are, a thousand to one, that they will have to pay her more than they receive by the time that they have paid out postage, living expenses and the expenses of their wives. If I go to my constituency I can take my wife, and there is no extra expense. The other hon. Member has to take his wife and meet the fare. They may have to stay overnight and there are hotel expenses to meet out of his so-called salary. This is unfair. If I go to my constituency with my wife and we open a bazaar or do whatever we do—[Laughter.] I do not know that there is much to laugh at. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Roebuck) might be opening one of the public schools—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Interruptions do not help. They prolong speeches.

Mr. Lewis: I am serious about this. As this part of the Motion stands, it does not go far enough. Why should some hon. Members be far better off than others because the House of Commons and the Government have not treated, and are not treating, Members fairly? There is discrimination. This House has been discussing taxation in which we have always claimed that there should be no discrimination against the ordinary elector, yet we have continually discriminated against hon. Members. This is wrong. The Chief Whip, who I see is present, or myself, can reach our constituencies in five minutes. It does not cost very much, yet other hon. Members who are already out of pocket have to pay a lot of money. There are other hon. Members, particularly on our side,


who, when they arrive here, ask themselves: what they can do. They have not got enough money.

Mr. Roy Roebuck: Write for Tribune?

Mr. Arthur Lewis: They may write for the Evening News. I am not criticising anyone for writing for the Evening News or Tribune. I have outside interests, but there are other hon. Members who say that they must have outside interests because they cannot manage.

Dr. M. P. Winstanley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in a recent Answer to a Parliamentary Question, the Chief Secretary informed the House that the average Member spent one half of his so-called Parliamentary salary on expenses wholly, necessarily and exclusively incurred in the performance of his Parliamentary duties?

Mr. Lewis: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. I hope that the Leader of the House will not dodge this. Both sides are equally guilty. Tories tried to dodge this because they thought that it would not be popular.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is logical in what he is saying, but I must ask him not to pursue in detail the history of discrimination as between the parties. He can argue that the inadequate provision for Members makes it necessary for some to seek outside interests.

Mr. Lewis: I was not attempting to go into detail on this. The Leader of the House says that he is dealing with it. We have been dealing with it for 25 years, and we are still no nearer a solution. Both parties, when coming to face this issue, have used the legitimate excuse that we are either in a crisis or coming out of one.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member cannot discuss in detail the merits or the inadequacy of Members' pay and conditions and the relative history of neglect of the two sides. He must keep to the Motion.

Mr. Lewis: With respect, Mr. Speaker, I am discussing the fact that the first paragraph, which I accept in principle, is not, in my opinion, sufficiently widely drawn to achieve the stated purpose

in relation to the declaration of Members' interests".

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member may accept my assurance that I understand what he has said so far.

Mr. Lewis: Hence I will repeat that for many years there has been neglect because Governments of the day have dodged the issue because they did not think that it would be popular with the public.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot, on this Motion, discuss the failure of Governments to solve the issue.

Mr. Wewis: I agree, Mr. Speaker. I am trying to explain that if the Committee is again to be set up and deals with only one very small aspect—the smaller of the issues and not the really big issue—of the declaration of Members' interests, unless full cognisance is taken of the reasons for Members having to vet outside interests, the Committee will not be doing the job which is implied by the Motion. I hope that the Committee will not dodge it this time but will look at all aspects of the question of outside interests, which include the points which have been mentioned.
I want later, on the Amendments, to give further reasons why I have reservations about the Committee.

Mr. William Hamilton: May I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker? When my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House moved his Motion, he referred not only to the principle outlined in the first paragraph but also to the composition of the Committee. You indicated, I think, to the hon. Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith) that by speaking once, he precluded himself from speaking again. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] If that is the case, I presume that we can all speak first on the general principle of establishing the Committee and, secondly, on its composition.

Mr. Speaker: With respect, may I say as the hon. Member did not understand, as the hon. Member for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith) did understand, my Ruling to him. The simple fact is that we are discussing the general principle on the first paragraph. That does not preclude an hon.


Member from speaking on the first paragraph and on the second paragraph. It precludes him from making both speeches on the first paragraph.

12.03 a.m.

Mr. John Pardoe: I will certainly attempt to be brief at this early hour of the morning. I support the Motion in principle although I have one or two queries to raise and I see difficulties ahead.
I certainly think that Members' interests should be declared publicly and openly. Indeed, I do not think that any right hon. or hon. Member, on either side, would mind if I said at this stage that we in the Liberal Party have had a register of this sort for a considerable time. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley), whose suggestion and idea it was. Any hon. Member can find out what my interests are in the House by approaching the Liberal Whip and asking to see it. Indeed, the Press have attempted to do this. I derive an income from four different sources apart from my Parliamentary salary, and that is open for all to see.
It is also important that these interests should be publicly available as a protection for individual Members, not only as a protection for the public interest. There is an early day Motion which concerns a strange story which appeared in the newspapers earlier in the week about two hon. Members alleged to have connections with the neo-Nazi Party in Germany. I do not know whether those connections are direct, but it struck me that it was highly likely that the connection was through a public relations firm. It is important that Members with connections with public relations firms should have those connections fairly and squarely laid out in public. Otherwise, it is always open for anybody in the Press or the public when anyone makes a speech about a special interest to say, "That is easy because he is on the roll of a P.R. firm". It is important that such a connection should be openly declared.
But there is a difficulty and I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to it. It will not be enough for an hon. Member to say that he derive an income

from a certain public relations firm. Public relations firms are notoriously secretive about their lists of clients, and it is often extremely difficult to know which clients are handled by whom. This is extremely important, because a Member of Parliament could well represent interests or an individual interest of a client for a P.R. firm and none of us would know.
The difference between private interests and political interests is often not easy to see. As the treasurer of the Liberal Party, I am only too well aware of that. Some hon. Members, as I myself, may well derive a small income from a trade union. I act in the House—and it is openly declared on our register—as a political adviser—to a trade union. The income which I derive may be small, hut, nevertheless, if that trade union paid that money to my Liberal association instead of to me, it would certainly benefit me, because it would pay certain costs which otherwise I would have to pay, but presumably I would not have to declare that. We should consider this carefully, because we might well find a good deal of switching between private and political interests and we would have to take that into account.
There is also the question whether this Committee should look into the declaration of interests of candidates at the time of elections, not only when a candidate becomes an hon. Member. If conversation is given to us to conceal our thoughts, the ballot paper and election addresses are often given to us to conceal our interests. My opponent changed his interests in the course of two elections and the description ranged from being a farmer to a Minister of the Crown to a retired Army officer. I have heard of retired officers becoming farmers, but it is only under Conservative agricultural policy that it can be the other way.
Many hon. and right hon. Members have spoken of the need for outside interests. I want to be brief about this subject because it has been somewhat laboured. To judge by the look on the faces of the gentlemen on the Front Benches, there seems to be some doubt whether you have been right, Mr. Speaker, to rule this subject in order. They seem to object to back benchers having any say about remuneration, but


that seems a proper subject to debate on this Motion. Hon. Members need outside interests because of the crazy way in which we pay ourselves.
In the course of the debate yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer made what I can describe only as a Freudian slip. He was groping for a description of a salary level of £5,000 a year. He said, "It is perhaps the lower, no, shall we say the middle executive level". He was saying that £5,000 a year was the middle executive level and here we are paid, we laughingly call it being paid, £3,250 a year and most of us know that it is not a salary in any sense of the word. We ought to reform the method by which hon. Members are paid and there have been various suggestions about that.
I do not accept that I am a bad Member of Parliament because I have outside interests. I have to have these interests because I cannot live without them and my bank manager would not allow it. [Interruption.] I tried it for a year and it was not possible.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Send him a letter of intent.

Mr. Pardoe: I am grateful for the suggestion. There is, after all, for most of us, plenty to do in the sense of a full-time job. I suggest that if we are to have part-time Members we might have a few part-time salaries. I would take issue with the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) who suggested that outside interests never interfered with selection. I would draw his attention to an article in the Sunday Times some while ago written by a former hon. Member of his party in this House, Mr. Julian Critchley, about the selection of a candidate for one of the Brighton constituencies.

Sir Douglas Glover: He lost.

Mr. Pardoe: One of the first questions asked at the selection conference was whether he could manage independently of his Parliamentary salary. I regard that as an infamous question and one that ought not to be asked. No party which can condone it being asked at a selection conference is worthy of the name.
The method of remuneration and the need for outside interests has a real effect on the quality of Members of Parliament. We tend to be a shrine to the cult of the amateur and it does not do the country any good, nor the balance between the Executive and the legislature any good. It may well be in the interests of the Front Bench, not only to curtail debate tonight, to deny us the right to say these things, but also because they do not want back benchers to be paid an adequate sum of money to do their job well because that puts a brake on them.

Mr. Roebuck: I am not out of sympathy with what the hon. Member is saying that these terms "full-time" and "part-time" require more definition. Some hon. Members can be full-time and have interests outside. It depends on their capacity and energy and things of that nature.

Mr. Pardoe: I entirely accept that. I know it from my own experience because my own outside interests enable me to pay a research assistant, and that enables me to do my job better.
The important thing is not only that we should have back benchers of high quality, but that from them are drawn future Ministers and members of the Executive. It may be that we are sacrificing their quality in future because we are having to draw them from a reservoir of people who are infamously paid and it is wrong that hon. Members should have to continue, to a large extent, on the charity, and sometimes the generosity, which outside firms and trade unions are prepared to give us.
There is a great deal of talk about negative income tax, but the trouble with this House is that it works on negative income: the more one does, the less one gets. That contravenes the first principle of the Government's incomes policy, that pay should be related to productivity. We should not have to worry about outside interests. I support the Motion.

12.15 a.m.

Mr. Peart: With the permission of the House, may I say that I am glad that hon. Members, broadly speaking, have welcomed the Motion. May I say to the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe)—and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham,


North (Mr. Arthur Lewis) will agree with me—that I did not seek to duck a debate on this matter. In fact, I gave a promise to my hon. Friend that I would not slip this Motion through on the nod and that I would allow an opportunity for a debate.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: May I interrupt my right hon. Friend? I would add to what he has said that on one or two occasions when I was going to wait, he advised me that he would not be moving the Motion. I can assure hon. Members that that is quite true.

Mr. Peart: Many extremely interesting speeches have been made by the hon. Members for Cornwall, North, for the Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. John Smith) and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Dickens). I agree so much with what they have said about the role of the Member and his place in this House, the inconvenience to which he is subjected and the inadequacy of his salary. I accept that. All I say is that this is not the occasion on which we should debate those matters.
I have moved to set up this special Select Committee because the House expressed a desire that this should be done. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister responded to that request. I hope that one day we can argue about the role of the individual Member. Each hon. Member who has spoken has, in his own way, expressed properly the importance of the individual Member and the part that he should play in a new situation if we have the courage to deal with it. I merely say tonight that I am moving this Motion, which is limited. I hope that even at this late hour we can have the Motion, and I expect that the Select Committee which will be set up will take note of what has been said and of the advice and evidence which will be submitted.

Mr. Dickens: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Interventions prolong speeches.

Mr. Dickens: Will my right hon. Friend answer one question? Will he give the House an assurance that when the Select Committee considers this matter it will look into the basic question of whether Members of Parliament should have any outside interests at all?

Mr. Peart: To say that a Member of the House should have no outside interests—

Mr. Dickens: Or paid employment.

Mr. Peart: I would have thought that from my point of view, as Leader of the House, it would be wrong to be dogmatic. A Member must have certain interests outside the House—each one in his own way. If it is the wish of my hon. Friend that the Select Committee should consider this point, he will have an opportunity to present his evidence and I am sure that the Select Committee will consider it. We have had an interesting debate and I hope that we can now come to a conclusion.

12.18 a.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: The Leader of the House is very persuasive. It is a pity that we did not have this debate earlier in the day instead of after midnight. [An HON. MEMBER: "We are full-time Members."] We are not 24-hour Members. It is better for the House and for the country to have a debate on such an important issue as this at a civilised hour.
The debate has clearly ranged over a very wide spectrum of problems concerning hon. Members. I do not want to delay the House unduly and I shall say what I wish to say as briefly as possible. I accept at once the principle of establishing the Committee. I disagree with the suggestion that the House should consist of full-time Members. It is legitimate—indeed, desirable—that certain Members should have outside interests, and paid outside interests.
But, having said that, I think it is equally important that they should all be on a public register, available to everybody to see, and that there should be penal clauses, if I may use that term, for those Members who do not honestly state what their interests are and their pecuniary value. Contrary to what was said by the hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe), the Liberal Party has not disclosed the full truth about its Members' interests. I will see him later, if he likes, and tell him where—

Mr. Pardoe: That will not do. That is a slur on what I said. The hon. Gentleman must justify that remark now in this House.

Mr. Hamilton: I will justify it outside, because the hon. Gentleman to whom I would refer is not here. I will refer to him in private, if the hon. Member for Cornwall, North is interested. But that is a side issue.
I think that the general principle is right. I should like to see a voluntary register provided by all parties. I am sure that the Labour Party would be prepared to do it. We all know who are trade union-sponsored Members on this side, and we know what they get either in cash or in services. It is quite open and honourable. Everybody knows it. Anyone who has an honourable outside interest should not be afraid to declare it and allow it to be inspected by the public.
I object very much that a Member can have an outside interest which he need not declare. For instance, at Question Time an hon. Member who has a pecuniary interest in a drug firm can raise all kinds of questions on drugs and the National Health Service, without declaring his interest. A Member can put down Questions sponsored by the company that pays him. This is one of the more corrupt practices that we ought not to tolerate in the House.
Another interest that need not be declared is where a Member chooses not to speak in a debate, but quite cheerfully votes for his company getting large sums of public money. This often happens. We often see the farmers opposite—some of them on the Front Bench—trooping into the Lobby voting millions of pounds of public money into their pockets. I think that their interests should be declared.
We are very much more strict with local councillors. I recall that a few weeks ago one right hon. Gentleman opposite referred to this matter in a supplementary question to the Prime Minister. A local councillor living in a council house could not vote on a proposed increase of 2s. 6d. a week in rents, but in the House Members with vested interests can cheerfully vote millions of pounds of public money into private pockets.
It is legitimate for Members to have outside interests. We could not really stop them. I do not see how we can stop them, unless we make serious incursions into the liberty of the subject.

If a Member chooses to write an article, or articles, for a newspaper, or appear on television or on radio, that seems to be a quite legitimate interest.

Mr. Dickens: There would be no bar to Members contributing articles to newspapers or appearing on television or radio. They would be given the full opportunity of using the mass media, but the point is that they would not be paid for doing so.

Mr. Hamilton: This is an absurd proposition. I thought that one of the principles of the Labour Party was that one got the rate for the job. If Members of Parliament are to blackleg, the B.B.C. or I.T.A. may say, "We will get these M.P.s, because we can get them for 'nowt'." This is a nonsense. The prestige of the House is increased by the knowledge that a Member who rises to make a contribution in our debates is a farmer, an industrialist or perhaps a banker. We always listen to such Members with great respect, and our debates are enhanced in value because of their contributions.
What we are saying, in addition, is that the House could not function unless a large proportion of its Members were prepared to serve fulltime. One has only to look at the position of Standing Committees to realise that it is impossible for the House to function unless a large number of hon. Members are prepared to accept full-time responsibilities, and they ought to have the emoluments and the services to go with them.
I am a full-time Member. I am the Chairman of a Select Committee.

Sir D. Glover: And a very good one.

Mr. Hamilton: We often have to entertain people who come and give evidence before us. The Chairman of another Select Committee proposed that the Treasury should give us an allowance so that we could entertain people who come here from Scotland and other parts of the country, but the Treasury turned down that proposal.
The chairmen of committees and subcommittees entertain people who come here at great cost to themselves and their organisations. They give up a great deal of their time to enable the House to benefit from their experience, yet they have to go without any entertainment or


sustenance unless an hon. Member pays for them out of his own pocket, and if he does that sum is not allowable for income tax purposes. It is intolerable that we do not receive an entertainment allowance.
It is all very well for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to make favourable noises and say that we have had a good debate and that many valuable points have been made. They have been made for years, with no obvious effect, because I do not think that the Government—any Government—are interested in providing facilities for back benchers the more adequately to challenge the Executive.

Mr. Peart: That is not true.

Mr. Hamilton: I could quote figures and facts for another two hours if my right hon. Friend—

Mr. Peart: What my hon. Friend has said is not true.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not interrupt the hon. Member. Interruptions prolong speeches.

Mr. Peart: I assure my hon. Friend that as Leader of the House I am aware of the problems of individual Members. It is wrong of my hon. Friend to say that I have no concern for the interests of hon. Members. I believe that my most important job is to think in terms of the individual hon. Member, his rôle in the House, and also the services which are important to him to enable him to carry out his duties.

Mr. Hamilton: I have great respect for my right hon. Friend. I am not castigating him, but Executives in general and the Treasury in particular.
There is this constant conflict between the two Front Benches and the back benches. We have seen it in this debate. We saw it on the Parliament (No. 2) Bill. We see it in a variety of ways.

Mr. Speaker: Order: I shudder when I hear the Parliament (No. 2) Bill mentioned in another debate. It is finished with now.

Mr. Hamilton: I know the difficulties and the pitfalls of trying to lay down rules. I agree to a large degree with the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir

Harmar Nicholls) when he says that once we start drawing up rules we get an element of rigidity that we would not otherwise get. Nevertheless, it is important that the public should be convinced beyond peradventure that this place is incorrupt and incorruptible, and one way to do that is to provide a public register. I presume that the mechanics of it will be worked out by this Committee.
I hope that the Committee will be positive in its approach, and not mushy. I hope that it will not come back and say, "We have looked at this, but we see so many pitfalls that we cannot produce any positive proposals". If that happens we shall be back to square one. That is why I shall have something to say later about the composition of the Committee.

12.30 a.m.

Mr. John Page: We are discussing the declaration of interests of hon. Members. The right hon. Gentleman told us that an hon. Member is expected to declare an interest before he votes, whether he speaks or not. Is it possible for us to be told the procedure for doing this?
Secondly, in supporting the appointment of this Select Committee, I hope that it will make a careful ruling about profesional partnerships. I am thinking especially of solicitors and accountants. With public relations firms or advertising firms it may be posible for a list of clients to be published, or discovered in various ways, but as far as I know there is no means of discovering this in the case of professional partnerships. It may be considered that a professional partnership would not come under this requirement of disclosure; nevertheless, I hope that the Select Committee will pay particular attention to the point.
Lastly—and I hope that this is not trespassing on the second part of the debate—may we be told whether any hon. Members and right hon. Members are sponsored members of trade unions—

Mr. Speaker: Order. That point is relevant to the second debate.

12.32 a.m.

Sir Douglas Glover: The hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) who always speaks with great


authority, finished his speech with an expression which is fundamental to this debate, namely, that the House must appear to be incorruptible. The worrying thing about the debate is that the very fact that we are having it shows that many hon. Members do not think that the House is incorruptible.
Nobody would say that I am a lukewarm controversialist, but in no speech that I have ever made in the House have I questioned the integrity of an hon. Member opposite. I do not mind whether he be a trade union Member, and is paid a subvention from a trade union; I have always considered that a person who goes through all the machinery and gets to this place is basically an honourable man. It is a great mistake for the House to start making snide remarks about people who may have outside interests. We shall lower the status of the House of Commons if we investigate these matters too far.
Some years ago, as a Member, I had a lot of commercial interests. Now I have got rid of them, but I have the money that came from them. Suppose I had invested that money in a unit trust: would it be necessary, on every occasion before I could ask a question, for me to cite every share I held in that unit trust? I presumably have an interest in each one, and am presumably interested in the question whether the policy of the Government will help imports or exports. Where do we stop when we start on this campaign?
We could legitimately say that a person drawing a salary to further the case of the pharmaceutical industry, the chemical industry, or some other commercial interest, ought to declare his interest before he takes part in a debate. But we do not live in a vacuum; I doubt whether the fact that a certain hon. Member receives a subvention from a certain organisation is not known to other hon. Members who are interested in the subject under discussion. It does not need to be written down. We do not need to produce hard and fast rules.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls): if we formalise these things we produce a situation in which an atmosphere of suspicion permeates the House as to whether an hon. Member

has been 100 per cent. honest in his declaration. What service will the House produce to find out whether the hon. Member for Ormskirk, myself, has declared all his interests? Will some sort of Gestapo go through my income tax returns? The House wants to be careful in the instructions which it gives to the Select Committee. I have no objection to the Committee inquiring into this situation: because of the atmosphere created in the House, it may be valuable, but I hope that the House will not expect it to come up with lethal sanctions, demanding that every hon. Member must declare this, that or the other. Apart from anything else, what a waste of time.
Should I declare only a financial interest, or, in every foreign affairs debate, must I tell the House yet again that I am Chairman of the Anti-Slavery Society? In every housing debate, must I say that, although I have no financial remuneration, I am chairman of the Pier-head Housing Association? It has been said that we should declare these things at Question Time. To carry this to its logical conclusion, since I hold many shares, would I have to give a list of 40 shareholdings before putting a Question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer?

Mr. English: I have been listening to the hon. Member with great interest. Why does he feel that hon. Members should not declare what they would have to declare if they were members of a local authority?

Sir D. Glover: I did not want to go into this argument. There is a difference, in that we vote large sums of money, but that money does not provide us with a house directly. Perhaps we could have another debate on that.
Despite all our bitter political controversies, let us not start talking as though our colleagues are all rogues and crooks, because nothing will do more harm to our democratic system. I hope that the Committee will approach this matter with sympathy and understanding. The feeling may be justified that in recent years some hon. Members have had an axe to grind, and have received remuneration for it, but, when a mine owner spoke, people knew his interests. In mining debates, nearly every speech by


hon. Members opposite represents the mining industry. Everyone in the House knows this; there is no need for a declaration of intent. We take with some suspicion and a soupçon of cynicism speeches from that side or this on particular subjects. It does not all need to be written down in black and white. We need not waste the time of the House unnecessarily by having many and varied interests declared.
I fear that the House is getting introspective over this matter and is being less worthy than it has been throughout its long history. I hope that the Leader of the House is taking these comments to heart, for while I agree that a Select Committee of this type should be established, I hope that, after deliberating, it will say, "Although we understand that there are difficulties, it would be far better not to point the finger of scorn at individual hon. Members, calling some first-class and others second-class".

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the rules and practices of the House in relation to the declaration of Members' interests and to report thereon.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That Mr. George Darling, Mr. Patrick Gordon Walker, Sir Eric Fletcher, Mr. Eric Lubbock, Mr. James Ramsden, Mr. G. R. Strauss, Sir John Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Derek Walker-Smith, and Mr. George Willis be Members of the Committee.—[Mr. Peart.]

Mr. Arthur Lewis: I beg to move, in line 1, after "Mr. George Darling" insert "Mr. John Ellis".
In view of your earlier Ruling, Mr. Speaker, it might be convenient if, with this Amendment, we discuss the other Amendment standing in my name, after "Sir Eric Fletcher" insert "Mr. William Hamilton".
I admit at once—and, in doing so, I apologise to the hon. Members concerned—that the names mentioned in my Amendment were picked out of a hat. I did not consult them before tabling the Amendment. I chose this course deliberately because I wanted to give my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House an opportunity to explain why, with the exception of one hon. Member, the rest

of those proposed to be members of the Select Committee are Privy Councillors.
The one exception is the Liberal Chief Whip, the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) who until a few moments ago was in his place. It is noteworthy that, with the exception of my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), none of the proposed Committee members has bothered to attend this debate.
I have no objection to Privy Councillors being members of this Committee. Indeed, I welcome them. I assume, however, that their names appear on the Order Paper as a result of discussions having taken place through what are called "the usual channels". That being so, I take it that if I fall out, so to speak, with the Leader of the House, I also fall out with the Conservative and Liberal Parties, the membership of the Committee having been agreed among the three parties.
Apart from all the proposed members of the Committee, with the exception of one, being Privy Councillors, it is an interesting fact—believe it or believe it not—that, with the exception of the last mentioned name, they all have or have had outside interests. I understand that an edition of Private Eye—an excellent journal; I have not read the issue to which I am referring—documented their various outside interests. As I have outside interests, I am certainly not objecting to the members of this Committee being Privy Councillors or having such interests.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: For the sake of accuracy, my hon. Friend may be interested to know that I have no outside interests.

Mr. Lewis: I apologise to my right hon. Friend. I should, therefore, have said that with the exception of two of the names listed, all have or have had outside interests.
This is a democratic assembly. Is the Leader of the House aware that, in addition to the Members listed, many other hon. Members have given long and faithful service to the House? They have had long experience of the House, and have worked hard for it. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) was one of the instigators of this motion. He campaigned for months,


if not years, to have a Select Committee set up. He is the sort of man who should be on the Committee. As I have said, my purpose in selecting the names in my Amendment was to establish the principle that there should be at least of couple of back bench Members—it is suggested that there should be more than a couple—who can quite honestly say that they have no outside interests.
The right hon. Member for Vauxhall will agree that for a long time he did have outside interests, but he can now say, as can the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover) that, like myself and others, he does not need to worry about having such interests. I say that with the greatest respect, and with no desire at all to be in any way offensive. There are others—old, loyal Members like my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West—who probably have no capital resources and cannot speak of that aspect. That type of voice should be heard in the Select Committee.
It may be said that my hon. Friends can give evidence to the Committee, and so they can, but that is not the same as being a member of the Committee, of taking part in the discussions, of putting points of view, and perhaps of interrogating witnesses.
I have no intention of seeking a vote, but my right hon. Friend can make it quite certain that a Division will not take place by announcing—and it will be a very rare occasion—that the Government accept the will of the House. There is no question of high Government policy or of a vote of confidence. The Prime Minister will not resign if my right hon. Friend accepts the Amendment. No members of the Government will resign, nor will any of my hon. Friends. We will not even ask for the withdrawal of the Whip. All he has to say is: "This is the place of democracy. I agree that there should be some ordinary back benchers on the Select Committee; some Members who are not Privy Councillors." Why should the Leader of the House seek to get the agreement of the Opposition and the Liberals when the 300 Parliamentarians on this side were not consulted? Can my right hon. Friend name any hon. Member on this side whom he approached and asked to serve on this Select Committee? Did he approach my hon. Friends the Members

for Fife, West and Barking (Mr. Driberg), both of whom have long service? The Opposition are not the House of Commons. Why consult the Liberals and not us?
Troubles arise in the House because back benchers on both sides say that the Government act undemocratically. The Government say, "We are the Government. We must govern. Obviously we cannot consult the back benchers on every matter. So occasionally we have to increase charges for teeth and spectacles and say that we did not know there was an election imminent, because we cannot consult back benchers". For the sake of having a friendly debate I will accept that as being true, but my right hon. Friend cannot advance that argument on this occasion. No harm would have been done if my right hon. Friend had approached a few back benchers and ascertained if they wished to serve on the Select Committee. No Motion condemning the Government would have been tabled. There are leaks about other issues every day of the week. I should have liked it to have been leaked to me that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House had consulted back bench Members on this issue.
The purpose of my Amendment is to enable me to point out to my right hon. Friend that this is a House of Commons matter, not one for government decision. There is no question of the Government having to give way and thereby perhaps losing face. The Government can easily agree to two back bench Members serving on the Select Committee. I have suggested two back bench Members. One is an old parliamentarian, in the sense that he is old and experienced in the service of the House. With great respect to the other—my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West—I have suggested him because he is a relatively new Member. The voice of the younger Members should be heard in the Select Committee. As the debate proceeds, because I know that some of my hon. Friends want to speak—

Mr. Peart: Oh.

Mr. Lewis: Yes. It is late, but my right hon. Friend should have brought the Motion on for discussion at an earlier hour. This is an interesting debate. Had the Leader of the House


consulted us, there would have been no need for a debate: the Motion could have gone through on the nod as a measure agreed with those who really matter, namely, the back bench Members

12.55 a.m.

Mr. John Ellis: I am glad that we have had this interesting debate. There would not have been this opportunity if some of us had not taken care to see that there was a debate.
The selection of the names in the Motion is an affront to the House. I have very little against Privy Councillors. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that they have many years of experience. But they have usually been here for a fair length of time, and that means that they are usually in fairly safe seats, so they do not have the same experience as many of the younger Members.
When we pick Committees to discuss Bills we try to have a cross-section of Members. Certain people are known to be for or against certain things, and a balance is given to the facts and opinions as they are known.
The Motion concerns a very contentious subject that will have to be handled diplomatically, but we have gone out of our way to have it dealt with by older, more staid Members who have been here a long time and will not put their foot in it. If there is one thing that can be said in favour of older people it is that they have the experience, but since when was a man's brain or experience measured solely by the length of his whiskers?

Mr. John Smith: In China.

Mr. Ellis: That may well be so. I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman.
We are all reasonable and friendly here, it is true, but new Members and younger Members have to know their place. I feel like speaking out of turn tonight, and I intend to do so. Younger Members do not go galloping up to Privy Councillors and talk to them; they know that they are their elders and betters. Things fall into their due order.
Younger Members have special problems because they have come out of jobs into the House, and are not in the same

circumstances as Privy Councillors. The pressures on the younger Member, for all the reasons that have been given, are not likely to have been experienced by the Privy Councillor for many years. I do not think that we have a sufficiently wide range of experience represented on the Committee.
I was appalled when I was reliably informed that some of the Members named had got together and talked about when they should hold their first meeting. I understand that at least the first meeting will be held in the afternoon, because they all have jobs or something to do in the morning. This does not augur well for the Committee.
I have noticed that my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) has said that he has no interests. But it has also been said, I believe in Private Eye, that if some of the members of the Committee have no interests now they certainly have had at times in the past. I consider that we ought to ensure that there are some critics represented. Obviously, in the light of this debate and the opinons expressed tonight, there is great interest in the matter.
The public are right to be suspicious and to keep an eagle eye on us in every way. It may be that one of the reasons why people outside have taken a dim view over the years of the subject of Members' remuneration is that—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): Order. The principle of the setting up of the Committee has already been decided. We are now discussing the selection of Members to serve on the Committee.

Mr. Ellis: I referred to public opinion generally, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I very much doubt that the selection proposed by the Government will give the Committee the benefit of the experience which some Members in different age groups have recently had of the pressures which come upon them. I am not satisfied that the proposed selection will overcome what still remains of the ideas which originated in the days when to be a Member of the House of Commons a man had to have a private income. The public are very wary in their attitude to Members of Parliament, and it is important to put over to them that, besides the Members who are comfortably off, there


are others who would do a better job if they had better services and so on.
This Select Committee is to be set up to do a vital job. I am very sad that we have botched it. Its membership has been carefully selected from a limited group, when we should have made sure that all walks of life and all age groups were represented, some with interests outside and some with none, so that the Committee could draw on the experience of all. It is a tragedy that we have not done that.

1.3 a.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: I should make clear at the outset that any remarks I make on this part of the Motion reflect in no way on the integrity, the ability or the wisdom of the Members who have been selected. I challenge the principle. I have always challenged the principle that Governments select the Members to serve on Select Committees of any kind. There should be machinery whereby back-bench Members select their own Members to serve on Select Committees.
The Government side sat down to consider what the selection of their own side should be, and they decided, in their wisdom, to appoint all Privy Councillors. This is a reflection on the ability or aptitude of back-bench Members which is not supported by any evidence. There is no irrefutable evidence that all wisdom resides in Privy Councillors. If there is any evidence at all, I think that it is to the contrary. But, be that as it may, did not the Government side think for a moment, "What will be the reaction of people like the Member for Fife, West or the Member for Bristol, North-West when they see that all our members are Privy Councillors?"
One could understand it if the Official Secrets Act or something of that sort were involved. But there is nothing of that here. Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Ellis) said, it might be suspected—I put it no higher—that the Members appointed might come up with conservative, rather reactionary proposals, perhaps not producing anything radical at all.
It will be a safe Committee. This may be quite wrong, and I may be doing it an injustice. My right hon. Friend knows that I have said in the House and in

private that I would like to serve on the Committee. There is no disgrace in saying that. There is no ambition in it. It will be an arduous task and my right hon. Friend was right when he chastised me in the House for saying that this was an exercise of improper patronage. He said that it was not patronage, there was nothing in it for the Members. I accept that but it is a job that some of us would have liked to have done, and we have been denied the opportunity, for no valid reason that I can see.
I would not suggest that we pressed this to a Division, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will take it to heart that we deeply resent the principle on which this Committee has been selected, which is that back-benchers are no use unless they have P.C. after their names. We reject that, and I hope that he will come back, either to revise the Committee, or if he does not do that, when he sets up another Committee, he will recognise that there are back-benchers who do not have those letters after their names but who, nevertheless, have an ability and wisdom adequate to performing the task asked of them in the House.

1.7 a.m.

Mr. English: I want to ascertain how far my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is responsible for this proposal. Obviously, he has some responsibility for it, ultimate responsibility perhaps. When the Prime Minister suggested the Select Committee, he said that, because this was a House of Commons matter, it should be dealt with by a Select Committee. That was entirely appropriate; it is the proper procedure.
The object of Select Committees dealing with House of Commons matters, like the Select Committee on Parliamentary Privilege and the one on Broadcasting the Proceedings of the House of Commons, and so many that we have had during the last few years, is to establish a small body of Members representative of the House who can then produce a set of recommendations which have some chance of passing through the House, preferably on a free vote. We thought that when the Prime Minister made this statement, this would happen. Then something went wrong.

Mr. Peart: Nothing has gone wrong.

Mr. English: My right hon. Friend says that nothing has gone wrong, yet he tries to get something through on the nod and we end up debating it in the early hours of the morning.

Mr. Peart: I have never tried to get things through on the nod. I gave an assurance to my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham, North (Mr. Arthur Lewis), who will confirm this, that I would allow adequate time, and I have done so.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: indicated assent.

Mr. Peart: I would ask the hon. Member to withdraw the accusation.

Mr. English: I am sorry. I unreservedly withdraw the statement that my right hon. Friend tried to get this through on the nod in the sense of moving it. He placed it on the Order Paper at the time of unopposed business and did not move it.

Mr. Peart: Not true.

Mr. English: Is my right hon. Friend—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harry Gourlay): Order. We should not pursue this aspect. We are discussing the composition of the Committee, and the principle of its selection. We should not go wider.

Mr. English: The point at issue is that a Select Committee to consider a House of Commons matter should be representative of the House. The composition of this Committee can scarcely be called representative. There is in the House a substantial majority of Members who are not Privy Councillors, yet there is an overwhelming majority on the Committee who are Privy Councillors. This is unrepresentative. There is a substantial number of Members in the House who have no substantial outside interests. Every Member of this Committee either has or had, whilst a Member of the House, a financial interest of a fairly substantial nature. That is an accurate statement of the position.
I do not object to any member of the Committee on that ground. Incidentally, a substantial set of financial interests is not represented on the Committee. As far as I am aware, there is not one trade union sponsored member of the Committee.

But I do not object to members with interests. I am suggesting that there should be members without interests so that the Committee may be representative of the House of Commons.
It seems that between the Prime Minister's statement and the Motion appearing on the Order Paper, something happened. I want to know from my right hon. Friend, from whom did the proposal that the Committee should consist of Privy Councillors come? Presumably, it did not come from the Liberal Party, because the Liberal member of the Committee is the only member of it who is not a Privy Councillor.
It is only fair to my right hon. Friend to draw attention to the extremely strange silence of the Opposition Front Bench. We have had Conservative back-benchers speaking, but no one from the Opposition Front Bench, and yet they are partially responsible, under the normal Rules of the House—

Mr. William Whitelaw: May I make one thing perfectly clear? We were asked to provide the names. We chose our own names. We were not asked whether they would be Privy Councillors or anything else. We were given the opportunity to choose whatever names we liked, and we did so.

Mr. English: I am glad that the Opposition Chief Whip has made that clear. I can only suggest that it is one of the most extraordinary coincidences of this Parliament that on so many issues, such as the Parliament Bill, the minds of both Front Benches have come to think alike when the back benches have not. In this case, it is an extremely strange coincidence that my right hon. Friend and the Opposition Chief Whip, entirely independently, arrived at the conclusion that all the members of the Committee should be Privy Councillors.
I accept entirely the statement of the Opposition Chief Whip. He says that the Government told him that he could select what names he wished. It is, therefore, apparently the case that he selected a whole row of Privy Councillors, and so did my right hon. Friend. It is an extraordinary coincidence. It has been most unfortunate, because it means that we shall have a Select Committee considering a House of Commons


matter that is only partially representative of the House of Commons.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Driberg.

Mr. Tom Driberg: I was waiting for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to get up, Mr. Deputy Speaker.

1.13 a.m.

Mr. Peart: I am sorry that my hon. Friends have pushed the argument the way they have. I believe that the names which appear in the Motion representing my side of the House are all hon. Members.

Mr. English: We are not disputing that.

Mr. Peart: Therefore, the argument that they do not reflect the House is a very wrong argument.

Mr. Driberg: That is a non sequitur.

Mr. Peart: My hon. Friends should allow me to finish. I have listened patiently to them.

Mr. Driberg: My right hon. Friend kept on interrupting.

Mr. Peart: Indeed I did not. I gave way to my hon. Friend. If he wishes, he can begin his speech. I thought that he wished me to intervene now.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will address the Chair.

Mr. Peart: All I am saying is that the names which have been selected represent broadly a cross-section. They are all distinguished Members of the House. This is the normal way in which Committees are set up.
If it is suggested that we should have a ballot behind the scenes, and that hon. Members should push their own particular points of view, there may be an argument for that. As Leader of the House, I cannot talk to every individual Member, but I try, in my way, to assess the House. I am sorry if my assessment has proved wrong in this case because certain hon. Members object. They have pushed the interests of certain hon. Members.
The right hon. Members from both sides of the House who have been suggested for the Committee will look at

the matter impartially, act honourably and report to the House. I can say no more than that. That is why I think that it would be wrong to argue for the inclusion of individual hon. Members as the Amendment suggests, and I hope that the Motion will now be agreed to.

1.15 a.m.

Mr. Tom Driberg: I have been provoked to my feet by some of the things that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has just said. He said that this was the normal way in which Select Committees were selected. But it has not resulted in the usual sort of Select Committee. Very few Select Committees consist only of Privy Councillors. Did my right hon. Friend mean something else?

Mr. Peart: There are certain Committees on which Privy Councillors tend to dominate—the Committee of Privileges. In this case, those selected were the individuals who it was thought, because of their experience, would best do the job.

Mr. Driberg: I echo completely what my right hon. Friend and others have said about the integrity of all these colleagues of ours. We all respect them; we like them; we know them. They have all the virtues except perhaps one—I regard it as a virtue—and that is a readiness to examine on its merits any proposal for radical change.
This is a situation in which it seems to many hon. Members, perhaps not to all, that a radical change is necessary. Of their very nature, intrinsically, these right hon. Gentleman, whether my right hon. Friends or right hon. Members opposite, are wise, elderly and long-experienced and, on the whole, will tend rather to preserve the status quo, would rather things went on as they always have. They are status quo people.
My right hon. Friend said that they were a true cross-section of the House. That was as though he were to appoint a board representing industry and say that a true cross-section of industry consisted only of directors and managers. This would be absolute nonsense, as he would be the first to admit.
I realise that all Governments always have and always will despise back benchers. [HON. MEMBERS: "These are


back benchers."] They are back benchers only in one sense of the word: they are mostly, naturally, ex-Ministers, and so on. All Governments despise permanent back benchers, for obvious reasons.
I only regret that my right hon. Friend and his colleagues and the Opposition Chief Whip have not been a little more subtle in showing their prejudices. If they had been characters in Trollope, they would have done it rather better. Of course, they would have packed the Committee with a majority of right hon. Members, but they would have slipped in one or two genuine back benchers as well—of the safer sort. They would have got the desired result in the end, the intended result of the whole exercise—that there will be no change—without making themselves as ludicrous as they have made themselves tonight.

1.19 a.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House may have given an impression which, on reflection, he may not wish to have given. He spoke of the hon. Members suggested in the Amendment as though others were pushing them forward specifically to be members of this Committee. These hon. Members have allowed their names to go forward so that a principle may be considered, namely, what should be the composition of the Committee.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: May I explain that I am an individualist. I did not ask anyone. I have a right in this House to nominate if I want to. I took that right and I did not consult either of my hon. Friends. I picked them out myself and it is the principle I am interested in, not the names.

Mr. McNamara: All the more was the impression which the Leader of the House gave, unintentionally, perhaps, unfortunate, and although I do not say that he should withdraw because he did not say anything directly, it was by implication—

Mr. Peart: I never imputed that anyone pushed himself, in any way.

Mr. William Hamilton: I was pushing myself and I did so in public and in private, and I was rejected.

Amendment negatived.

Amendment proposed: In line 3, after 'Sir Eric Fletcher', insert:
'Mr. William Hamilton'.—[Mr. Arthur Lewis.]

Amendment negatived.

Main Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That Mr. George Darling, Mr. Patrick Gordon Walker, Sir Eric Fletcher, Mr. Eric Lubbock, Mr. James Ramsden, Mr. G. R. Strauss, Sir John Vaughan-Morgan, Sir Derek Walker-Smith, and Mr. George Willis be Members of the Committee.—[Mr. Peart.]

Orders of the Day — SELECT COMMITTEE ON MEMBERS' INTERESTS (DECLARATION)

To have power to send for persons, papers and records; and to sit notwithstanding any Adjournment of the House:

Five to be the Quorum.—[Mr. Peart.]

Orders of the Day — URANIUM (GAS CENTRIFUGE PROCESS)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harper.]

1.24 a.m.

Mr. Edwin Brooks: I wish to raise a matter which has excited a good deal of interest and anxiety both in this country and in many parts of Europe—and not least among the leaders of the Soviet Union. To judge from some of the professed anxieties, one might think that the hour is even later than the clock tells us. I refer to the proposal for a gas centrifuge technology for the enrichment of uranium, a sophisticated scheme to be developed jointly by this country, the Netherlands and the Federal Government of Germany.
This is a most important proposal, both in the economic and military sense, and I feel that Parliament is owed a full explanation of the Government's objectives, and an equally full account of the precautions which should properly attach to a scheme of this sort.
I do not pretend to be an expert in nuclear physics, nor in nuclear engineering, but in this House at least I am in good company. This ignorance on the part of politicians and the general public of matters which could affect the lives and prosperity of the whole world is one of the inescapable dilemmas of democratic government in this so-called scientific age.
Nevertheless, if we are to make sensible decisions about these esoteric problems, it is vital that we should make the effort to understand what the scientists are about. Apart from anything else, this might help us to rebut the misrepresentations which can so easily be spread, and which to some extent have been spread about this project.
My questions fall into three main sections: the economic case for the gas centrifuge, the industrial structure of the tripartite venture, and the military potential of the uranium 235 which will be concentrated by the process and made available to the countries concerned.
The enrichment of uranium has been described as a key to the future development of nuclear power. The process is designed to increase the proportion of the fissile isotope of uranium, uranium 235, relative to the much commoner and very slightly heavier uranium 238. Without such enrichment, we are told, the efficiency of future power stations would be handicapped.
On the borders of my constituency in Cheshire lies the older, original technology, the gaseous diffusion plant at Capenhurst, where the gas uranium hexafluoride is pumped through a series of porous barriers and membranes until the required degree of enrichment is attained. Here the fissile material for Britain's thermo-nuclear weapons was prepared. The electricity consumed in such a diffusion cascade is enormous, and Capenhurst, although much smaller than the United States complex at Oak Ridge, Portsmouth and Paduca—which use, I understand, 6,000 megawatts of electricity when on full stream—is probably the greatest single industrial consumer of power in Britain.
Indeed, I understand that about half the price of processing the uranium by the diffusion process is in electricity costs alone. Therefore, a process, such as the gas centrifuge, which promises to use considerably less electricity could have a big influence on the future costs of enriched uranium. Some estimates I have seen suggest a power requirement only 10 to 15 per cent. of that needed for the diffusion plant, while a further bonus is that for a given throughput a centrifuge plant is believed to be marginally cheaper to build.
Against this, the centrifuges, which spin at 50,000 r.p.m. and generate centrifugal forces in excess of one million times gravity, may prove to be expensive and sophisticated devices on the very frontiers of our present metallurgical and engineering skills. I would be interested to know from my hon. Friend how far the obvious problems of such devices have yet been solved—for example, how to pass the gas in and out while the rotor is spinning at these tremendous speeds, the problems of the vacuum seals and the structural integrity of the outer walls of the rotor. Indeed, there is, I gather a risk of a sort of chain reaction among the centrifuges themselves should one split and fly to pieces and bombard the others.
These problems have been described at length in the recent scientific literature, and I am merely summarising the type of difficulty which is implicit in this new project. But as a politician, I feel that we need to have some assurances about the practicability of the engineering before we decide that there are advantages in us participating in a joint protect, involving as it does certain dangers to which I shall refer later.
I very much hope that my hon. Friend will be able to assure us that the concept is not simply a political gimmick, devised to enable us to sneak into Europe via Bonn. I personally do not believe this, having discussed the matter with nuclear engineers during recent months, but I think that we should be told more about the rumoured scientific "break-through" or breakthroughs which are supposed to have occurred recently. I would also like more information about the choice of sites. I have some constituency interest in this, as I am aware that in recent years very substantial investment has taken place at Capenhurst in the Wirral peninsula which has led to reductions in the cost of enriching uranium.
Further proposed investment at Capenhurst has been held back pending clarification of the centrifuge agreement, and I and people on Merseyside are naturally curious to know the latest state of play. Will one of the two proposed centrifuge plants be at Capenhurst? In view of the investment already made there, it is probable that a "hybrid" system would make economic sense.
In Science Journal, last February, it was suggested that the initial stages of the diffusion plant could perform the rough filtering, and the centrifuges, also connected up as a counter-flow cascade, would then bring the enrichment of uranium-235 up to the standard fuel figure.
This incidentally, is a much lower level of enrichment than the 90 per cent. plus required for weapons. This suggests that one major use of the centrifuge will be topping-up the capacity of existing filter type separation plants, and I therefore assume that Capenhurst is the probable choice of site. Indeed, it would be good if this could be confirmed tonight. From Merseyside's point of view, this could be most exciting, with a vast nuclear city-complex emerging on Wirral.
The possibilities of growth seems substantial, for one attraction of the centrifuge system is that capacity can be expanded piece-meal. As the Economist said last March:
Instead of one big separation plant for the whole of Western Europe, which has been the only alternative up till now to wholesale dependence on the Americans, a battery of centrifuges costing an estimated £6 million can be built to provide the fuel for a 600 megawatt nuclear power station, and another battery installed when the next power station is ordered.
There would seem to be undoubted advantages of having such successive centrifuge cascades alongside one another, and alongside the diffusion plant where the so-called rough filtering is carried out. But there seems to be a further prospect of the actual manufacture of the centrifuges being placed alongside as well. This also has great relevance to Merseyside. The scale of output of centrifuges would be very large, since estimates have been made that a production line capable of turning out one million rotors a year will be needed by the early 1970s.
Indeed, estimates of the Common Market requirements alone by 1975 suggest a figure of several million rotors. It has been claimed, and I would ask my hon. Friend to comment on this, that such production of a highly precise piece of engineering would be best sited near the centrifuge cascade, to avoid the possibility of damage being caused in transit

over long distances. Capenhurst, on Merseyside, could mean an injection of highly skilled employment.
I am aware that such detailed considerations may lie in the future, but this brings me to my second major series of questions, the business side of the project, its administrative structure and the way in which decisions will be taken over purchases, siting of plant, pricing of the product and so on.
If I can take the pricing first, is it to be the case that uranium will be sold to the member countries at basic costs of production, or will there be a levy to meet the capital costs involved? I ask this because I understand that the operating costs of the centrifuge are relatively low—so little electricity being required—yet the capital investment, plus the research costs at this stage, could be very substantial.
Furthermore, how is the market for the enriched uranium to be calculated and won? The huge diffusion plants in the United States and possibly their successors will presumably be competing with the centrifuge plants, in the E.E.C. countries as elsewhere, and I would be interested to know whether there is confidence that the centrifuge price will prove competitive.
New Scientist, on 20th March last, criticised the administrative arrangements as being "not very sensible", and designed apparently to appease all interested parties: the United Kingdom because of its vast and recently expanded investment in uranium enrichment at Capenhurst, the Dutch because they believe—I base this upon an Observer article of 16th March last—that they have a two-year lead over the other countries, and the Germans because of her growing need for nuclear fuel, quite apart from her hitherto undisclosed work on isotope separation methods.
Could my hon. Friend tell us which organisations and firms are actually involved in the scheme, and on what terms and conditions about profit margins and voice in decision making? In a Press statement issued on 11th March, it was announced that two organisations should be set up—a "Prime Contractor" for the manufacture of centrifuges and the construction of enrichment plants, and an "Enrichment Company" for the


operation of enrichment plants. The headquarters of the former, the prime contractor, which will be responsible for research, design and construction of the extremely high performance centrifuges, is to be in Germany. I would like to know a little more about its rôle.
Mr. David Fishlock, in the Financial Times on 13th March, described it as
in effect, a central purchasing agency for some very high grade engineering-rotors, bearings, ultra-fast drives and vacuum systems, for example—and should soon find itself placing orders for components for some hundreds of thousands if not millions of machines a year. Those orders will go out to tender in private industry in the three countries, and, if others are admitted, in those countries, too.
This is clearly big business, possessing wide powers of industrial patronage.
Are we to have two, or more than two, assembly factories built for the manufacture of the centrifuges initially? Are these to be alongside the centrifuge cascades in the Netherlands and Britain, as I think would be sensible, or will they be in Germany? I am not suggesting that location in Germany would be in any way sinister, but if there are strong industrial arguments in favour of location near the centrifuge plants, can we be sure that these advantages will not be obscured in the Teutonic mists of patriotic fervour?
What would be the position in general terms if a further country sought to join the consortium? Would participation on the part of other E.E.C. countries be desirable? It seems to me that we tend to pay far too much lip-service to the idea that anyone who wants to join in later can do so; but after all, it is not good enough for others to come in once the initial risks have been borne and the costs incurred, and simply help cream off the benefits.
This question of commercial exclusiveness, or secrecy, leads me to the final and politically most explosive aspect of the joint agreement. Recently, I heard the Soviet Ambassador upstairs in this building denounce the project as, in effect, a back-door method for giving Germany nuclear weapons. Bearing in mind that Bonn has so far refused to sign the nonproliferation pact, it is easy to see why such anxieties should be aroused among those who rightly have no wish to forget the lessons of the Second World War.
My own view is that Germany's essential objection to signing has derived from her fear of being excluded in some way from sophisticated nuclear technology. The very fact that she has now embarked upon this highly sophisticated collaborative venture is surely proof that her progress in the field of peaceful nuclear energy need be in no way jeopardised by signing the pact. To refuse to sign the pact in present circumstances seems increasingly hard to understand or justify, and I hope that my hon. Friend will comment on this difficulty, although I realise that it may not be his particular Departmental responsibility.
Having said that, however, I think that a lot of rather foolish things have been published in recent months about the military dangers of the project. In an article in The Times, by a correspondent whose views command attention and respect, Leonard Beaton, on 23rd January, it was implied that we are on to a hiding or nothing:
Clearly,
he said—
if the centrifuge can be made to work cheaply, it creates horrifying problems. If it cannot, its development cannot be justified except as a means of promoting nuclear weapon development.
But is not this sort of gloomy and pessimistic approach to the problems of nuclear energy both irrational and unjustified? The basic problem is not the technology, which, in any case, will soon begin to spread elsewhere if it proved to be economically practicable and technically sound; the basic problem is devising a control mechanism internationally for the handling of these dangerous goods.
Mr. Beaton argued that we might consider lining Britain up behind all international efforts to treat the traffic in nuclear materials like the drug traffic, but short of closing down all nuclear power plants it is inevitable that plutonium, at any rate, will be made available to increasing numbers of countries to whom we, and other countries, will sell reactors. This might give us pause in our present negotiations with Greece's fascist régime. Nevertheless, as recent speculation about Israel has made clear, the nuclear genii is out of the bottle for good or ill. He cannot be stoppered up again.
So I do not think that we should oppose this sort of scheme because it makes available yet more nuclear fuel. This is slamming the door on the world's future energy needs, and I sense that it is both impracticable and misguided. But I feel that Mr. Beaton's careful article and similar criticisms need to be pondered much more carefully and thoroughly than I can do tonight, and that the House, and, indeed, in a sense, the world, needs to be satisfied that Her Majesty's Government and the other two Governments have considered this critique, and know the answers.

1.40 a.m.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Technology (Mr. J. P. W. Mallalieu): My hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) has made not only an interesting but extremely balanced speech on what is a difficult question. I am most grateful to him for it. He has asked a number of penetrating questions which I shall try to answer in the time available, but I ought to make clear to him and the House at the outset that so far no formal agreement yet exists between this country, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands to embark on the collaborative production of enriched uranium using the centrifuge process.
When my right hon. Friends met their colleagues from the two other countries in London on 11th March agreement was reached on a number of principles which would have to govern any collaboration, if it took place, but discussions have continued with the two other Governments and a number of issues have still to be settled before we can even be in a position to sign a formal agreement. I hope that my hon. Friend will understand that for this reason it will not be possible for me to be as precise as he might have wished me to be in dealing with some of the points that he has raised.
In his speech my hon. Friend concentrated on three main themes—the economic aspects of the project, the industrial organisation involved and the military implications—and I propose to try and reply to him in that order.
The first question he asked under economic prospects was related to the likely cost of the enriched uranium produced

by the centrifuge process. This is one of those questions on which I cannot be precise, since until we have gone much further in our discussions with the other two countries; indeed, not until after a formal agreement has been concluded will it be possible to estimate at all precisely what the economics of a design using the best ideas from the three countries would be.
However, all three of us are confident, on the basis of work which each of us has done in our own country, that the process is cheaper than the gaseous diffusion method, used at present at Capenhurst, and, moreover, that the tripartite venture will be able to compete with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission's enrichment plants—and I hope that my hon. Friend will consider that this also answers the point that he made about the market potential for enriched uranium from the centrifuge project in competition with similar uranium produced by the gaseous diffusion process.
My hon. Friend referred to the choice of sites—with some fervour, as Capenhurst is of immediate concern to him. If agreement is reached between the three countries to collaborate, we envisage that two plants would be built to enrich uranium—one in the United Kingdom, and the other in the Netherlands and the Netherlands have already nominated a site for the plant in their country. We have not yet decided where any British plant would be located. There are, of course, very strong prima facie arguments for building it at Capenhurst, but the final choice has not yet been made—and indeed does not need to be made yet.
But whether or not a centrifuge plant is erected at Capenhurst it will supplement and not supersede the gaseous diffusion plant there. As my right hon. Friend told my hon. Friend during Questions on 16th April that plant will continue to supply enriched uranium for many years to come. Both facilities will be needed to meet the growing need of the nuclear power programme of this country—and, we hope, of other countries too—for enriched uranium in the 1970's.
My hon. Friend asked a number of questions about the industrial organisation of the centrifuge project. Obviously, again, since we have not yet concluded


a formal agreement I can only give an indication of the lines along which we are working and which are agreed by all the three countries involved. There are two distinct functions that the industrial organisation will have to perform: one is to develop and supply the centrifuge plants, and the other is to use the plants to enrich uranium. We think that two distinct international companies, jointly owned by the Government and/or industrial interests in the three countries should be set up.
One of these will be an enrichment company which will own and operate the enrichment plants. The other, which has been called the "Prime Contractor", will carry out research and development on the centrifuge and will design, develop, manufacture and construct complete enrichment plants ordered by, and to the specification of, the enrichment company.
These two international companies should have as much autonomy as possible in their day-to-day operations if they are to operate on a sound financial basis. They would, however, be supervised by a committee composed of representatives of the three Governments, which would decide on questions arising in the course of their business, concerning security procedures, the safeguards on the use of nuclear material, relations with other countries and similar matters.
As regards participation in the project by other countries, the communiqué issued after the Ministerial meeting in London on 11th March stressed the readiness of the three Governments to associate other European countries with the proposed collaborative venture after its establishment, and went on to point out that a special working party was being set up to examine what form of co-operation might be envisaged.
I think that it is clear, therefore, that all three Governments would welcome the participation of other European countries in due course, but the discussions that have taken place up until now have been solely on a tripartite basis because the three countries concerned believe that they are the only ones in Europe who are in a position to exploit significant work on the development of the gas centrifuge process.
I come to the question of the military implications of the project. I can well

understand the anxieties expressed by my hon. Friend, and by others, anxieties which I shared when I first heard of the project. First, consider the question of where the enriched uranium will go, and under what safeguards. There is an enormous growing demand for enriched uranium and for nuclear power stations, particularly in Europe. There is, consequently, a pressing need to create an independent European capacity to produce this enriched uranium at a reasonable price and independently of overseas suppliers.
We in this country have done more than any other country to convert nuclear resources to power purposes and we have, therefore, the strongest interest in maintaining a leading position as fuel suppliers to the power reactors of today and of the future.
When my right hon. Friends met with their colleagues from the other two countries on 11th March they were fully agreed on the necessity to include in the proposed collaboration agreement appropriate mutual undertakings on non-proliferation and provision for appropriate safeguards to be applied in relation to these undertakings. They also agreed that one of the tasks to be given to the Inter-Governmental Joint Committee, to which I have referred, was this question of safeguards and I am sure that my hon. Friend will understand why it is not possible, therefore, pending the conclusion of negotiations, for me to say precisely what form these safeguards will take.
My hon. Friend asked about the position of Germany in relation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. I think that the whole House knows that Her Majesty's Government attach the highest importance to the treaty and hope that it will come into force on as wide a basis as possible and as soon as possible. We should, of course, welcome the German signature on the treaty, but, inevitably, this is a matter for the Federal German Republic.
But Germany is, nevertheless already committed under the revised Brussels Treaty not to manufacture nuclear weapons on her territory, and nothing in any possible agreement on centrifuge collaboration can change that. I believe, therefore, that the position of


the Federal German Republic on nuclear weapons is absolutely clear, when one surveys the commitments that they have entered into over the years. As for our position, we shall, of course, ensure that any collaboration agreement is in full conformity with our position as a country which has ratified the treaty.
Finally, a comment about the anxieties of the Russians, to which my hon. Friend referred. Soviet propaganda has been asserting for many years that we would be willing to give the Germans access to nuclear weapons in return for German co-operation; for example, for their help in our entry into the European Economic

Community. They have pointed to the centrifuge talks as another example of our efforts in this direction. There is nothing new in these arguments and, equally, there is nothing true in them. Nor should we forget that the Russians are very active in export markets for nuclear material. I believe that—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the Debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at six minutes to Two o'clock.